Heir Apparent
by AHS
Summary: It's been seven peaceful years since their escape from Syria, but now with the impending death of the head of the Organisation, a document may pull the Rippners straight back into the line of fire. Original sequel to Bejerot's Diagnosis.
1. Chapter 1

Matthias Poulain had always been a very specific and overly organised man.

In 1944, after the fall of the Vichy government, he and a few of his closest friends from the French Army used their organisational prowess and skills picked up from spying on the Vichy to form a small Paris-based company consisting mostly of ex-spies that could be contacted when one needed a private investigator. Post-war Europe was the perfect breeding grounds for distrust and paranoia, so the once-small company quickly found itself with branches around France and soon in other European nations. It wasn't until the late 1950s, however, that the organisation was able to add the world "mondiale," or world, to its name. In the height of the Cold War, the society grew with leaps and bounds, spurred by events like the Cuban Missile Crisis, the tactics of Joseph McCarthy, and the idea of Mutually Assured Destruction. Everyone suspected his neighbour was a communist with plans to take over the country, so the Americas soon had two branches: one for North America, and one for South America. If people were paranoid, they needed someone to go to, and they wanted the people to have a good reputation. The World Society offered this.

Or at least that's what the pamphlet said.

Anaïs Vioget sat at her desk at the world headquarters of La société mondiale des investigateurs privés, looking over the newest brochures they'd received from the printer earlier in the day. They contained old pictures of Poulain and his associates, all of whom had been killed under questionable circumstances in the late 1970s. There was no attempt to explain why Poulain had risen solo to the head of the organisation; the information skipped straight to the yuppie 1980s when suddenly rich businessmen began using corporate spies to check up on associates.

Anyone high enough in the organisation knew that Poulain and his former partners were renegades during the war. All had started as soldiers in the French armed forces, but by the time the country was turned over to the Vichy, they were guns for hire. The young men orchestrated key assassinations during the course of the war and were applauded by officials on both sides for their traceless tactics. Thus, at the end of the war, when they decided to form an agency to continue their ruthlessness, their former employers just turned their backs to the whole thing, and after decades of propaganda, no one was around anymore who actually seemed to remember that the World Society was responsible for dozens of World War II assassinations. Even the governments involved had forgotten because their affiliations were so top secret, few documents were ever filed about their contacts. Of course, organisation members had eradicated all of those documents years ago.

The organisation first had the idea of participating in terrorist attacks back in the 1970s. After being approached by several potential employers to participate in railway bombings and commercial aircraft crashes, the board, which consisted at that time of the five charter members, convened and discussed the possibility of taking those jobs. Four of the men wanted to take them and one didn't--that one was Matthias Poulain, who found the terrorist tactics tasteless. He absolutely refused to let his brainchild become part of that, and he was quite vocal about it. The other four laughed at him and took glee in the fact that they outvoted him, but not quite remembering that he was the most ruthless of all of them, despite his petition against terrorism. Over the next month, each died in a different fashion, and from that point, no one ever bothered Matthias Poulain about his tactics ever again. They could think of their views, yes, but announcing something contrary to his wishes was exactly like signing your own death certificate.

Thus began the reorganisation of the World Society. Poulain dug through his files and selected his best managers from around the globe to form a board: eight men and women expected to stay on the panel for a life term, all having second-in-commands set up for immediate replacement in case of death or incapacitation. Poulain's own second-in-command was his nineteen-year-old son, Lucien, who had grown up jet-setting with his father after his mother's death when he was a toddler. He was applauded by his overseers in the organisation for being a prodigy and by 1988 had chosen his own successor and started his training after deciding that he had no interest in the liability of a family. Only a few short months before his father was to retire, however, Lucien was killed by his own assassin, who then killed herself. Poulain, however, took it in stride, and soon had his son's successor elected as his own.

His successor proved to be even more talented than the marvellous son. Poulain spoiled him from afar, raining prodigal gifts upon him. The boy was brash and ruthless, finding more humour in the pain of others than pity, but looking at him, no one would have had a clue. He was good-looking and unassuming at the same time, and with a pair of sunglasses on, he could easily be lost in a crowd. The most amazing and perhaps terrifying thing about him were his eyes. Piercingly blue, they could be used as weapons, which was good, seeing as the boy had surprisingly poor aim. When the boy reached his late-twenties, the documents were signed that granted him the title of heir apparent of the World Society, and unless he was killed prior to Poulain's retirement, he'd become the head of the entire organisation.

Murphy's Law states that anything that can go wrong, will, and that's exactly what happened in this case. Enraged by the same thing that spurred the killings of his associates years before, Poulain's protégé called him and angrily announced his resignation. Poulain was not at all surprised and assigned to him a very cut-and-dry assignment based around the boy's town, Miami. The surprise hit when his golden child failed in his assignment and a short time later married and impregnated the woman who caused his failure. Things fell apart in short order, and soon the organisation was in chaos. Two pivotal members including the boy's recruiter were found to be double-agents, working secretly for a terrorist organisation, and before long, there was a McCarthyist shakedown within the society. Purges were completed.

By 2010, five years after the departure of his successor, Poulain chose a new protégé, but everyone was questioning his decision. The child was only eleven at the time, and although her parents and grandparents had been organisation members, everyone was sure that her family wouldn't approve the appointment. Despite this, Poulain was able to convince her grandparents that Agatha Bayley was a suitable replacement for him, so she went into training against her mother's wishes. Agatha and Poulain didn't click as well as he and Jackson had, but with the man being ninety already, there was little chance of having time to start with a child outside of the boundaries of the society. It became apparent later in the year that Poulain was experiencing the first stages of delirium--he kept assuring everyone that Jackson Rippner was going to return to take his place at the head, and when presented with the papers to legally lift Agatha to the position of heir apparent, he refused to sign them, and there was nothing any of them could do about it.

Anaïs leaned back in her chair and yawned deeply. She was thankful for having no window in her office because if she saw the sun rise again from her desk, she'd have been extremely upset. For the last twenty years, she'd been Poulain's confidante, always there or on-call to cater to his needs. Whenever he was in the office, she was there too, though that usually meant getting home just after dawn or not at all. Typically, however, he adhered to his schedule, and today's schedule called for a ten o'clock departure so that he could get a good night's sleep before taking the train to his niece's house in Normandy for the Christmas holidays. As the clock ticked over to midnight, however, she grew more and more worried. Standing, she quietly walked to his door and rapped on the wood with her knuckles.

'Monsieur Poulain?'

There was no answer, so she rapped again and then pressed her ear to the door. She couldn't hear anything on the other side, so she pulled out the key to his office from her suit pocket and pushed open the door.

'Monsi--' she started, then froze. No one was sitting behind the desk,

She started walking around the room, trying to figure out how he could have left without her knowing, and then she heard a quiet voice. 'Anaïs...'

Turning around, she saw fingers sticking out from behind the other side of the desk. Jumping over on her high heels, she bent down to Matthias Poulain with a hand on her mouth. He'd been shot in the chest twice and she, sitting just ten feet away from his door, had heard absolutely nothing. Grabbing him, she pulled him into her lap like she had with Jackson years earlier after he'd been shot by Lyna Melinyshyn and then grabbed blindly for the phone. Knocking it onto the floor beside them, she dialled 1-4-4. It connected quickly.

'Allo, this is Anaïs Vioget at the World Society headquarters. Matthias Poulain has been shot, and I need medical assistance immediately!'

After a short conversation with the dispatcher, she hung up the phone and pulled Poulain closer to her.

'Everything is going to be all right, monsieur. The ambulance will be here soon.'

'C'est une conspiration, Anaïs.'

'Monsieur?'

He coughed, and Anaïs tensed up as a trickle of blood fell down his chin. 'Don't-- don't let the board name my successor... follow my will.'

She nodded, tears inadvertently running down her face. 'Yes, monsieur. I will make sure that Agatha--'

'Pas Agathe,' growled Poulain with unexpected fire. 'Jackson.'

---

A/N: And now for the repost of Heir Apparent that everyone's been requesting! Enjoy!


	2. Chapter 2

Once their fourth child was born, Lisa Rippner had this vision in her head of her husband as Captain von Trapp, standing there with a whistle and calling the children to order, all of them dressed in uniforms and marching in military formation. They'd be the robotic Rippner children, terrifying the neighbours with their emotionless faces and coming to their whistling father like dogs, except Lisa wasn't a very good singer, so they'd never get to the part about becoming a family band. What she didn't expect was that on Christmas Eve, she'd be sitting on the patio watching her husband take their oldest son, Jonathan, and fling him off of the diving board, followed soon by Jackson bouncing off the board with their screaming twins, Matthew and Adalia, tucked under his arms. She sipped serenely at the Seabreeze, once again her drink of choice, and found herself wondering exactly what Hediyeh was planning to do with the lemons she was picking off of the neighbour's tree. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the tall eleven-year-old filling her arms with over-ripe fruit and grinning quite deviously at the children in the pool. Once Jonathan surfaced, the first thing she did was thwack a lemon right at him, which hit him straight between the eyes. The younger children laughed hysterically as their brother flailed around, wiping the seeds and pulp off of his face before dipping back under to wash the juice off.

Lisa, of course, knew was what coming. Jonathan surfaced again near her feet and she looked down at him through her sunglasses. 'Maaaaa-om! Hediyeh hit me with a lemon!'

Lisa looked at Jackson, who was still holding the thrashing and laughing twins and trying his best not to make eye contact with her. 'Jackson, who was the person who taught Hediyeh to throw fresh produce?'

Sheepishly, he dropped Matthew and raised his hand. Matthew came to the surface and swam to the stairs, settling there and blowing water out of his nose as he glared at his father and laughing twin sister.

'He should have ducked!' said Hediyeh as she walked over, sticking her tongue out at Jonathan as he looked up at her darkly from the water. 'If he can't dodge a lemon, he'll never dodge a bullet.'

Jackson's expression changed immediately. 'Hediyeh, rule eighteen.'

She grew sombre and straightened her back. 'Never discuss firearms or weapons of any kind, especially the use of them against another person.'

Ah, and that's why she expected her husband to become Captain von Trapp. After young Hediyeh explained to her classmates how her parents met and then how she met them, the Rippners got an extremely irate phone call from her primary-school teacher, who demanded to know what horrible stories they were telling their children and proceeded to explain that if she heard anymore gruesome tales, she was going to call the authorities to arrange for a social worker. Lisa, who was eight months pregnant with the twins at the time, got very ill with worry over the possibility of having their parenting overseen, so Jackson spent several days coming up with his Twenty-Five Core Rules. Each of the children could recite them from memory, but Jackson still tested them every morning at the breakfast table, pointing at a child and saying a number. They ranged from the obvious to the incredibly obscure, everywhere from don't talk to strangers (with the post script 'especially if they know anything about the family') to not discussing any family matters, past or present, with anyone outside of the family. There was certainly an air of mystique around the Rippner family, but they all felt safer that way.

Lisa snapped out of her musings as there was a loud splash and water splashed all over her. Jonathan had pulled Hediyeh in, and the irate Iranian was now flailing around and yelling something in Arabic that made Jackson drop Adalia and swim over to her, yanking at her ear before dunking her under. When he pulled her back up, he had his managerial front up and spoke in a hushed voice to their daughter, who nodded at him with wide eyes before swimming to the side and climbing out, squeezing the excess water from the fabric of her sun-dress and her hair. She walked over to Lisa and her mother wrapped a towel around her, rubbing her arms as the girl sat down next to her. In any normal family, there most likely would have been jives coming from the pool, but the Rippner children had grown very much accustomed to just going about their normal business after intense matters. After all, their father did set up terrifying scenarios for them every now and then that definitely would have had them blacklisted by Child Protective Services. Without getting into much detail, Lisa was just confident that her children could hold their own with kidnappers and perhaps even determine flaws in the kidnappers' plans that would facilitate escape.

With their natural children engaged in a game of Marco Polo, Jackson saw his own chance for escape and climbed out of the water, smoothing his hair back from his face before walking over to his wife, hands on his hips. He stole a sip of her Seabreeze and gave her a wet, grapefruity kiss before picking up a towel and starting to dry off. Throwing himself down onto the chaise lounge, he watched as the boys tried to coax the new puppy, who had just come around from the side yard, into the pool as their sister nagged at them. The dog paced back and forth, looking down at the laughing boys.

'Kids, don't let Scupper get in the--' Lisa started just as the dog took a leaping bound into the water. '... pool.'

'He's a water dog,' grumbled Hediyeh, not looking at Jackson. 'That's why he has webbed feet.'

'Hediyeh, maybe you should go to your room and change for Christmas Eve dinner,' said Jackson, his tone leaving no room for argument.

---

Three hours later, the Rippner family walked in the tall doors of the Big Canyon Country Club, which was a mere block or so from Fashion Island, the outdoor mall in Newport Beach. The place was packed with holiday revellers and under a huge Christmas tree, Santa sat waiting for lists from the expectant children. Jackson groaned audibly just a moment before Adalia, Matthew, and Jonathan began begging loudly to sit in Santa's lap, but after considering her husband's seemingly natural aversion to Christmas, Lisa announced that Santa was for after dinner, or more specifically, when Daddy was waiting for the car. They were no fools -- all of them knew it was best just to stay quiet about it.

They were led to a table and sat down, but it wasn't long before Hediyeh saw a friend from school and asked if she could go outside with her. Jackson said that it was all right and the two girls went off to play on the sidewalk that ran along the edge of the golf course so that Jackson and Lisa could still watch their daughter.

'I want to play outside,' grumbled Adalia, but she was silenced by a stern look from her father.

'When you're as old as Hedi, you can go outside and play by yourself too,' assured Lisa with a smile. 'But right now, you're too young for that.'

Adalia sighed, jutting out her bottom lip and letting her big green eyes become edged with tears.

Jackson pointed at her. 'Rule twenty.'

'No complaining over Mommy and Daddy's judgement. The family is not a democracy, but rather a ben--ben--'

'Benevolent...' said Lisa, leaning forward and enunciating every syllable.

'Be-ne-vo-lent,' pronounced Adalia carefully before continuing. 'Benevolent dictatorship.'

Jackson leaned back, obviously proud of himself and Adalia's answer.

'Dad?' asked Jonathan in a small voice.

'Hm?'

'Why can't we just act like other families?' Jonathan asked, shifting in his seat. 'I don't think any of my friends have weird rules like we do and I don't think they do the weird thing we do where we have to find our way out of some warehouse in Encino.'

'Well, we're not a normal family,' Lisa replied before Jackson could and he immediately gave her a shocked look. She paused for a moment to smile demurely as the waiter brought their drinks. When he walked away, she leaned closer to the table. 'Jonny, where were you born?'

'Miami?' he said in a questioning voice.

Lisa shook her head. 'You were born in _Syria_.'

'Syria?' Matthew said with his nose scrunched up. 'Syria's far away.'

'It's close to where Hedi was born,' Adalia replied confidently. 'Matthew and I were born here.'

Jackson laughed a little at the worried look on Adalia's face. 'Yes, you and Matthew were born here.'

'Why was I born in Syria?' asked Jonathan with a furrowed brow. 'Were you and Daddy there to adopt Hediyeh?'

'Ye--' started Jackson, but Lisa put a hand on his arm.

'No, we weren't there to adopt her,' Lisa replied. 'Jackson, they're old enough to know. You know how some of our rules talk about something called the World Society?'

The children nodded.

'Well, Daddy used to work for the World Society,' Lisa continued. 'That's actually how Daddy and I met. He had an assignment that involved me.'

'So... Daddy was on a business trip?' Adalia asked innocently.

'No, honey,' she laughed. 'Daddy made some enemies when he worked for the organisation, and after Mommy and Daddy got married, those enemies kidnapped Mommy and took her to Syria.'

The children gaped simultaneously.

'But Mama, how did you get away?' Matthew asked, getting up on his knees in the chair and leaning forward.

Lisa grasped Jackson's hand warmly and smiled. 'Daddy came and saved Mommy from the terrorists.'

Adalia gasped and put her little hands to her mouth. 'Terrorists?'

'Terrorists,' Lisa said, widening her eyes. 'Mommy was hurt very badly by them and Hediyeh's real mother was killed--'

'Sometimes, Hediyeh cries about her mother,' Adalia whispered, running her finger along the outside of her fork.

Lisa tipped her head sadly. 'The Army came in and flew us to Hamah, and you were born on the way there. Mommy almost died, but she ended up being all right.'

'I almost killed you, Mommy?' Jonathan asked worriedly, grabbing at his knees.

'Mommy's all right now,' Jackson replied warmly. 'And none of you have to worry about anything happening to her ever again.'

'What was your assignment with Mommy, Daddy?' asked Matthew suddenly, sitting back down in his chair properly.

The Rippners looked at one another, unsure of how to answer their second-youngest child. The three children watched them expectantly until Adalia piped up.

'Is it top secret?' she asked in an excited whisper, her eyes wide.

'It's top secret,' replied Jackson with the same excited fervour and Adalia puffed up, grinning at her brothers because she'd supplied the correct answer.

'Mr Rippner?' asked the maitre d', walking up professionally to the table. 'I'm sorry to interrupt your dinner, but you have an urgent phone call up at the office.'

Jackson raised an eyebrow. 'Who is it?'

'She didn't identify herself, sir, but did say that she's family and has a very limited time available to talk.'

Jackson placed his cloth napkin on the empty base plate before him and pushed the chair back, standing and walking over to the man.

'Jackson?' questioned Lisa, giving him an odd look.

'It's probably just Melissa calling to wish us Happy Christmas,' said Jackson with an uncomfortable smile. 'I'll be right back, and I'll bring Hediyeh with me so we can all start dinner.'

Lisa returned the uncomfortable smile and nodded her head stiffly as her husband walked away, following the maitre d' to the office near the tall doors that they'd entered from. The man handed him the phone and gave him a quick nod before walking out and closing the door behind him, and once it clicked shut, Jackson pressed the hold button.

'Mel?

'Jack,' she said quickly, her voice thin. 'Something terrible's happened in Geneva.'

---

Jackson stood in the marble-walled bathroom of the Big Canyon Country Club staring at his face in the huge mirror. His hands gripped uncomfortably at the cold marble under them before he bent over and splashed his face with the cold water flowing from the tap. It was certainly a dilemma, and although Jackson hadn't yet lied to Lisa, he had the nagging feeling that it was suddenly the time to do so. How could he keep anything from her though? He watched his reflection once more, trying to figure out what it was about his eyes that she could see through. There was no way he could just go out there with his formerly favourite emotionless look or she'd immediately know what the call had been about. With a deep breath, he thought about how he'd felt when Lisa's heart was restarted in Hamah, that warm feeling that creeps from the very core of one's being and spreads hopelessly over the entire body until it presents itself as euphoria in the mind. A smile lit up his face and he pushed all thoughts of the organisation out of his mind before drying his face and exiting the bathroom.

A large mirror was positioned over a table outside of the bathrooms, so he pulled a comb from the inner pocket of his suit jacket and combed his hair back as sleekly as it had been before he ran his fingers through it, mussing it up as he conversed with Melissa. Coming out from behind the dividing wall between the bathrooms and the main club, he glanced down the hallway to the opening doors and smiled at Hediyeh, who was walking in with her friend.

'Hedi, we're waiting for you to start dinner,' he said warmly, and Hediyeh waved at her friend before running up to him.

'You're happy,' she noted, taking his arm in her hands and pressing herself against him.

He stuck his other hand in his pants pocket. 'I was waiting to hear from my sister, and she finally caught up with me. It was good to hear her voice.'

Hediyeh nodded slowly as they stepped down the couple of stairs to the main dining room. 'How is Melissa-khaah?'

'She's doing well.'

'Are you actually expecting Maman to believe you?' she asked, holding back his arm.

He stopped and looked down at her, and she glanced up with all seriousness. 'You didn't order a drink, Hedi. Why don't we go up to the bar and get you something?'

They turned to the right and went up another little flight of stairs to the lounge area. A pianist was playing Christmas music right in front of the bar and Hediyeh watched him for a moment before climbing onto a bar stool and setting her elbows on the smooth countertop. Jackson sat beside her and cleared his throat as he gave the bartender a quick look-over.

'Matha tureed?' he asked, looking at her with raised eyebrows.

'Shirley Temple, please,' she said to the barkeep. 'With extra cherries.'

She turned back to Jackson and they had a stare-down until her drink was set in front of her. She sipped at it as he continued in Arabic.

'How did you know?'

She swallowed a sip and then started dipping around a cherry in the fizz. 'I've been punished enough by you to know when you're upset about something.'

'What is it that I do that makes it so apparent?'

'You act sort of... nonchalant. But the hate blazes in your eyes, Baba,' she said, looking over at him with pitiful raised eyebrows. 'Your eyes are so light, they're almost colourless. They only provide your mind with the amount of protection a window does for a... a...'

'A brothel?' he asked, and she coughed loudly. 'Or your mother changing right next to the window when she doesn't know I'm watching her in the back yard?'

'Ewww, Baba!' she grumbled, smacking him on the arm.

'Where do you think your siblings came from? Immaculate conception?' he continued, which made Hediyeh thrash around with her hands on her ears. Reaching over, he softly pulled her hands away. 'Seriously though, you cannot let your mother know that something's happened.'

Her face melted into a worried look. 'Are you going to tell me?'

He considered it for a moment. 'If you don't let your mother know anything, I'll tell you what the telephone call was about when I'm tucking you into bed tonight.'

Hediyeh pinched her lips and crossed her arms. 'Don't call it tucking me in, Baba. That's embarrassing.'

'So what do I do to make sure that she doesn't know there's something wrong?'

She took a deep sip of her drink as she narrowed her eyes in thought. 'I'll take care of it. Just follow my lead.'

Jackson laughed lightly. 'Follow the lead of an eleven-year-old?'

'I know how to get around Maman,' she said with widened eyes. 'It's something you _boys_ don't understand.'

He laughed loud enough to startle her into swallowing a cherry stem she was trying to tie with her tongue. As he slapped her on the back, he explained himself. 'Hedi, I've understood women for years, but I don't understand Lisa-maman. I've never met anyone else like her and I hope to God I never do.'

She slipped down from the bar stool and walked away, not even checking to see if he was following--she wanted to assure she had the upper hand in this battle, and even stuck her chest out and her nose in the air as she approached the table quickly. Jackson took long strides to keep up with her, and when Hediyeh huffed and sat in her chair, grabbing at her napkin and glaring at Jackson, he just automatically glared back.

'Was it Melissa?' asked Lisa, looking between Hediyeh and Jackson.

'What?' he asked, snapping at her a bit.

'On the phone,' Lisa replied, giving him a dark look. 'Was it Melissa?'

'Yes,' he said shortly.

'What was it about?'

'Nothing important,' he said, folding his napkin over and smoothing it out in his lap. 'Just the normal Christmas greetings.'

She leaned closer to him. 'Then what are you so angry about?'

'He's mad at me,' Hediyeh said cockily, twisting at her napkin madly. 'When he came out to get me, I was with a boy.'

Jackson raised an eyebrow, but Lisa didn't notice as she gave a surprised look to their oldest child. 'A boy?'

'Yes, I was with a boy,' she said, again craning her head. 'I told Christina that I was coming in for lunch, but really I was meeting with a boy down at the golf cafe level.'

'Hedi, you're eleven.'

'I'm almost twelve!' she said loudly enough for the people around them to glance at the table. 'I can make my own decisions!'

'Like hell you can!' replied Jackson, pointing dangerously at her. 'If I can help it, you won't see another boy until you're in your mid-twenties.'

'Maybe not that long,' said Lisa with an uncomfortable smile to her husband. 'But your father is right, Hedi. Wait at least a little longer, okay?'

'You're just like Baba and Pedar, Mamani,' she grumbled, crossing her arms. 'What do you know about boys? No boy has ever hurt me, and no boy will. You worry too much.'

Before Jackson could say anything, Lisa was glaring daggers across the table, which made the twins and Jonathan stare uncomfortably at their butter knives and service plates. 'You shouldn't talk about things you don't understand, young lady.'

'Look, dinner!' said Jonathan suddenly.

'Yes, I like dinner,' added Adalia, adjusting her utensils needlessly.

'Dinner is very good,' Matthew said, mirroring his twin's actions.

Lisa looked up at the waiter as her covered dish was set in front of her, and Hediyeh took that moment to wink at her father.


	3. Chapter 3

Thousands of miles away, it was already tomorrow. The sun hadn't yet risen, but the work day had already started for the World Society. In the guest wing of Matthias Poulain's Geneva estate, Melissa Bayley watched her fourteen-year-old daughter looking at a closetful of suits and high heels. There was no sweet reminiscing, no thought that Agatha should be sleeping until noon or playing outside in jeans with people her age--people like Melissa were bred to be part of the organisation. The only thoughts that echoed through her head were things like how lucky Agatha was that her fourteenth Christmas was being spent at home rather than as a hostage in Vietnam in a cage with a gag in her mouth, which is of course how Melissa spent her fourteenth Christmas. Agatha pulled out a suit and held it up for her mother's inspection before sitting at her dressing table and letting Melissa brush her waist-length red hair and sweep it into a bun at the base of her neck.

'Mum? Do you think that I'll become the head of the organisation today?'

'I'm not sure,' she replied stiffly, thinking back to her conversation with Jackson. 'You're not the heir apparent, are you?'

'Well, no, but Uncle Jack isn't going to come back to the agency, so--'

'Aggie, dearest, you must know by now that it's not a matter of whether he wants to do it or not. If the board wants him to take over, they'll find him and make him come back.'

Agatha leaned forward and ran the stick of her MAC base over her cheeks before blending it all with a wide brush. Her dark eyes watched her mother in the mirror, expecting her to say more, but after a moment or so, she just went back to applying her makeup. 'Where's Christopher?'

'Still asleep,' her mother said with a bit of a yawn. 'It's Christmas. Most people aren't up yet. And besides, very few people are to know about this situation, and your brother is one of them.'

Agatha spun around on her dressing table stool. 'Why is he not allowed to know?'

'He's not a member of the organisation, dearest,' cooed Melissa, leaning back against the thick curtains.

'We've told him plenty of things before,' Agatha whined, tugging at the edge of her short, silk slip. 'Why can't we tell him this?'

'You can't begin to imagine what would happen if the media found out about Mr Poulain,' replied Melissa emphatically. 'The board has had to call in a lot of favours to cover Anaïs' calling of public medics yesterday, and--'

There was a sharp knock at the door, and Agatha jumped a bit before watching with narrowed eyes as her mother walked to the mahogany doors. She cracked it open a bit to look at the demure maid standing outside.

'Pardonnez-moi, Madame,' she said softly. 'All of the members of the board are ready in the conference room in the east wing as soon as the heiress is dressed.'

'She'll be ready in a few minutes,' grumbled Melissa, and the maid jumped back as the door slammed in her face.

After tucking a stray blonde hair behind her ear and straightening her black dress and white apron, the maid walked slowly down the marble hall, glancing a bit at Poulain's niece, who was still wearing her work uniform, as she passed the young woman in the hall; she was walking alongside Lyna and didn't pay much mind to the maid as both of them were engrossed in a deep conversation. Their voices faded away as she turned down another hallway, moving quickly towards the conference room. She raised her hand, preparing to rap on the thick wood to catch the attention of the group inside, but before her knuckles touched the surface, the door opened and she was met by a very angry-looking Middle Eastern woman.

'Yes?' she asked harshly.

'Oh, um...' the maid replied, pressing her hands to her chest. 'The heiress will be arriving in a few minutes. She's just now finishing up.'

Pedram seemed slightly flustered. 'Wait out here and announce her arrival.'

'Yes ma'am,' said the other woman meekly as Pedram went back into the boardroom and shut the door.

Pedram strode back to her place at the table. Two of the members of the board, Richard Crome of Australia and Melanie Watson of North America, were whispering heatedly to one another as the South African Yasini Machogu listened on. Beside Pedram, Cristobal Valencia of South America leaned back in his leather chair, his eyes narrowed as he watched the three, occasionally stealing a dark glance at the young Thai woman who was fidgeting beside him. Everyone stopped talking when she spoke.

'If Mr Poulain wants us to find Mr Rippner, then we should,' she said, twisting the edge of the scarf she was wearing in her hands. 'We can have the heir presumptive be an interim director as we convince Mr Rippner to return, and once we secure him, everything can be as Mr Poulain wishes.'

'It's absurd to have a fourteen-year-old girl as the head of a multi-national crime organisation,' growled Valencia. 'All that she'll do is get us in trouble. How will it look if an unknown child suddenly becomes the director? It's not like Bayley is some sort of wunderkind.'

'She's too easily manipulated,' added Crome, tapping his fingers on the wood tabletop. 'She grew up with her mother breathing down her neck, and if something happens to her mother, she'll fold. We can't risk that.'

'I think it's absolutely ludicrous that we even consider searching for Jackson Rippner,' hissed Pedram, slamming a fist on the table. 'The decision to keep him as the heir apparent was made by a delusional old man.'

Saeng Chaiyasan, the Thai delegate, narrowed her eyes. 'How dare you even consider speaking of Mr Poulain in that way!'

'It's the truth!' Pedram immediately countered. 'In his damaged mind, he thought it a good idea to have a director with seven liabilities: his wife, his parents-in-law, and four children under the age of twelve. He'll do anything to assure that they're safe, and that includes risking exposure of his own sordid past and the organisation's real motives.'

'Ghodsi is right,' said Marek Osikowicz of Europe, tapping his pen on the legal pad in front of him. 'It would be a waste of our time to acquire Jackson Rippner, and a waste of funding to adhere to the rules he's sure to keep.'

The room immediately became tense--the topic that had been hovering uncomfortably in their minds was finally spoken. The eight continental leaders and their second-in-commands, who sat along one wall behind a long table, grew silent once more. A few of the seconds, however, seemed confused, and the confusion was verbalised by a twenty-something Japanese woman who was Chaiyasan's second.

'Excuse me, Mr Osikowicz, but which rule are you speaking of?'

'The anti-terrorism by-law,' replied Pedram's second, who was sitting beside the woman. 'Mr Poulain has made it law within the organisation to prohibit the involvement of managers in the planning of terrorist mass killings.'

'It makes absolute sense to prohibit such activity,' said Chaiyasan. 'Terrorist attacks are utterly tasteless and appalling.'

'They are a necessary evil,' replied Abioye Oshodi of North Africa. 'And besides, they are just a larger scale version of what we do every day: get a point across with a killing.'

'But the killings that we participate in are succinct and directed towards people who have committed crimes against others,' Watson tried to reason. 'If we resort to planning terrorist attacks, then we've lost the humanist ideals that feed the roots of the organisation.'

Pedram laughed. 'Are you really dense enough to think that there's anything humanist about the World Society? We train children to become cold assassins and criminals.'

'And they do things like ridding the world of Sani Abacha,' shot back Machogu. 'We provide a needed service, and it's not something that takes the lives of innocents.'

'No one is innocent,' replied Oshodi.

Watson gaped. 'So you're telling me that if your parents were killed in a terrorist attack, it would be all right because they're not innocent in the first place?'

'That's right,' said Oshodi coldly, and Watson was noticeably taken aback. 'These things happen, and there's no stopping them anyway, so we might as well capitalise on the opportunities given.'

'That's terrible,' said Crome under his breath.

'It is through the conflict caused by terrorism that we're able to continue operations,' said Osikowicz quite matter-of-factly. 'If people were lulled into security by no terrorist threat, then we'd be out of business.'

'If people are lulled into submission by terrorist attacks, then we'll fail faster,' replied Chaiyasan, playing with the ends of her scarf again.

'It is likely that if Poulain were in his right mind, he'd have already given the go-ahead to terror affiliations,' snapped Pedram. 'He was always saying _tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis_, and the times now call for organisations such as ours to have such affiliations.'

'No, he wouldn't want that. No matter what, he wouldn't want unannounced attacks on civilians in peaceful areas to be planned and carried out by his organisation,' said Watson very seriously.

Silence again fell over the room until Pedram stood up and looked at the members of the board and then their seconds. 'All right, then. Let's make this official. We'll have a vote.'

Chaiyasan shook her head. 'We should wait for the heir presumptive before taking any--'

'This doesn't involve the heir presumptive,' interrupted Valencia. 'She doesn't have the knowledge or training to have any say in this.'

'But she represents Matthias, regardless of what you may say,' said Crome in reply.

'Let's just take the damn vote,' grumbled Pedram. 'All in favour of taking mass-killing jobs, please stand.'

Cristobal Valencia and Abioye Oshodi stood without a second thought, and after a few undecided moments, Marek Osikowicz stood as well, and it was at that moment that the World Society was perfectly split in half. Asia, North America, Australia, and Southern Africa were allied to keep the rules of the Society as written by Matthias Poulain years before until Jackson Rippner was convinced that returning to become the head of the World Society was a good idea. The more dangerous side consisting of Europe, the Middle East, Northern Africa, and South America, however, felt that the only way to preserve the Society was to take on the jobs so hated by Poulain, and, if Ghodsi Pedram had as much say as she was sure she had, kill Jackson Rippner and his family.

'Then... then it's undecided,' said Chaiyasan. 'We need to have Miss Bayley throw in the tie-breaking vote.'

Pedram smiled. 'No, I think we have everything worked out.'

There was a knock on the door before the maid stuck her head in. 'Miss Bayley has arrived for the meeting.'

'Have her come in then,' said Pedram with the same self-assured smile.

The board members stood as Agatha walked in, smoothing the front of her suit jacket. She nodded to them and all sat as she turned her gaze to the Seconds.

'Seconds, you are all excused. Please wait in the winter parlour for your superiors.'

After some trepidation, the seconds all stood and started filing out of the room, but the Japanese woman with Chaiyasan paused by the door, making eye contact with the Thai woman, who was noticeably trembling as she placed her hands on the tabletop. The Japanese woman put her hand on the door frame, ignoring the pulling of the North American second who was trying to convince her to come out of the room. Chaiyasan swallowed loudly before speaking in a frail voice.

'Chiaki,' she said, weaving her fingers together so tightly in front of her that her knuckles turned white. 'Please go with the others.'

With a look of sadness, Chiaki Fujieda paused and then bowed to her superior before letting the Canadian Austin Dalby pull her with him to the winter parlour. As the door snapped shut behind them, Chiaki had the sinking feeling that she was never again going to see Saeng Chaiyasan alive.


	4. Chapter 4

'So, what do you need to tell me?'

Hediyeh's eyes blazed from behind the novel she'd plucked off one of the shelves in the living room--more specifically, Jackson's ancient copy of _Hostages to Fortune._ Lisa had just left the room, and Jackson could hear her soft voice as she spoke to Jonathan in the room adjacent. Adalia, who'd gone to bed a half-hour earlier, was curled up to her ragged bunny, snoring lightly and most certainly dreaming of fairies and sugarplums after spending part of her evening in Santa's lap as Jackson sat in the idling car. On the other side of the wall, he imagined that Matthew was doing the same and that Jonathan was anxious to copy him as soon as his mother left the room to go stock the stockings and put a few extra presents under the tree. Finding no valid excuse, Jackson walked around to the other side of the bed and settled in his eldest daughter's desk chair.

'There have been complications in Europe and there's a chance I may be recalled.'

A moment of silence passed. 'If that's it, I think you're thinking too highly of yourself.'

'No, I won't be called back to participate in jobs,' he said, glowering.

'Then what?' asked Hediyeh disbelievingly.

He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees and running a hand through his hair, which had a few silver strands running about in it. 'Before I met Lisa-maman, I signed a document--'

The door creaked open a bit and Jackson sat up, narrowing his eyes at the long shadow created in the light from the hallway. Once a golden muzzle topped with a shining wet nose snuck itself through the wood, however, he figured there was no way it was his wife coming in.

'Scupper,' said Jackson, but the dog just looked at him with a little wag of the tail before walking to Adalia's bed and climbing up to curl beside her on top of the quilt.

'What kind of document? Do you have a contract with them?'

'Of course I had a contract with them,' Jackson replied, keeping his eyes on Adalia to make sure that she was staying asleep. She turned over and put her arm over the Golden Retriever, resting her nose in his thick fur, and once Scupper had nodded off, Jackson deemed it safe to continue, but in a lower voice. 'When I quit, however, the contract was destroyed. This document that I'm speaking of is much more binding than any work contract.'

Hediyeh yawned. 'You're drawing this out in the hopes that I'll fall asleep before you can finish.'

He wished he could be so lucky. 'The problem in Europe is that the head of the organisation is dying. He's in the hospital in a coma.'

She shrugged before closing the book and setting it on her night-stand, then slipping down under the covers and looking at him with half-closed eyes. 'Then that takes care of the problem. If there's no organisation, then there's nothing to worry about.'

When she gave him a comfortable little smile, he ached to lie to her so she could sleep without worries. 'He's a very important man and we have a very long history together.'

Hediyeh nuzzled to her pillow and began to look more like the preteen she was rather than the hardened and sarcastic daughter of Jackson Rippner. 'My parents died and I turned out all right. Even if he's close to you, everyone has to die some time.'

Jackson reached out and brushed back some of her long hair, tucking it behind her ear. 'I'll probably have to go to Europe to tie up some loose ends because of our history, but whenever I go there, I won't be gone too long.'

'That's all you were worried about?' she asked softly, blinking slowly. 'You just have to help work some things out? That's a stupid worry.'

He laughed a little. 'Yeah, I guess it is.'

'And a weird document too.'

'Yeah, it is,' he replied, pulling her covers up a little. 'Goodnight, Hediyeh.'

'Goodnight, Baba.'

Reaching across her, he turned off the light on her night-stand and walked across the room to kiss Adalia on the forehead and pet the dog, who was now snoring along with his bed-mate. He stepped quietly to the door, closing it softly and turning to see Lisa, her hands on her hips and leaning against the wall across from him.

'I knew you were out here. I could smell your perfume, and it wasn't mingled enough with the smell of the dog to be residually on his fur.'

She was unimpressed.

'Tell me things in-person, Jackson. Don't have me overhear you telling one of the children,' she said, taking a wide stride to him and pointing a finger at his chin as she spoke through clenched teeth. 'And don't you _dare_ have one of the twins or Jonathan hear you breathe a word about management.'

'You seem to have done a good job yourself regarding letting them know things they aren't supposed to hear about.'

Lisa narrowed her eyes, pressing him back against the door and then grasping the handle and cracking the door, almost sending Jackson back into the room. The narrow sliver of light fell upon Scupper's head and Adalia's curls, but before Jackson could ponder the moment for long, Lisa had him firmly by the hand and was dragging him towards the backyard, the cold metal of her wedding band pressing into the veins atop his own hand. Once they were outside, she shut the door behind them.

'That had to be done and you know it,' she hissed, moving quickly towards him, still pointing angrily as he walked casually along the pool, his hands in his pockets. 'Jonathan's old enough that he'll be seeing his birth certificate soon, and it says absolutely plain as day that he was born in Syria.'

He gave her a burning look, his jaw set as his cold eyes settled on her. 'And you don't think that when they get a little older, they're going to want to know what the top secret assignment was that dealt with you? You couldn't have just called it a business trip, could you have. Righteous Lisa, pleasing Lisa, always wanting a good story to excite the children.'

'Oh, don't even,' she snapped back. 'I've heard you telling your stories to the boys. I'm sure the young man secretly poisoning the evil African dictator and covering it up as a heart attack before fleeing the country under the cover of night has nothing to do with the killing of Sani Abacha, hm?'

He grinned. 'It really couldn't. After all, after that job, I was flown out of Nigeria in a medical jet because I thought it'd be interesting to shoot myself.'

She raised an eyebrow. 'What aren't you telling me? What document did you sign?'

He puckered his lips in thought before walking to her and placing a hand on her waist. She looked up at him worriedly, reaching up to hold his jaw as she scanned his face. They stood in the undulating light from the pool for a moment before she stretched up to press her lips to his. He hungrily kissed her back, holding her tightly to him with both arms wrapped around her back. When their lips parted, he didn't let go, and she strained against him for only a second before his voice resounded against her.

'I'm the heir apparent,' he said in a strangled voice, and she stopped trying to back away from him, instead grabbing handfuls of his shirt as her eyes widened.

'What?' she asked in a whisper. 'You're the heir to what?'

'The World Society,' he responded, leaning his head to rest it on her shoulder, muffling his voice in the thin fabric of her night-gown's robe. 'When Matthias Poulain dies, I'm going to become the head of the World Society.'


	5. Chapter 5

'Lisa, you seem tense.'

In a perfect response, Lisa jumped and spilled her coffee all over the front of her blouse before turning to look at the petite Hispanic woman who stood at the doorway of her office. The woman threw a hand to her mouth in surprise before dropping it to her chest and rushing over, pulling a handkerchief from her pocket and dabbing at the rapidly cooling coffee.

'No, no, it's all right, Inez,' Lisa replied, backing away noticeably from her second-in-command. 'I just haven't had a lot of sleep lately, so I'm a little edgy.'

'Is something wrong with the kids?' Inez asked in concern, wringing out the kerchief in the wastebasket.

'No, they're doing fine. Jackson's just been really stressed lately,' said Lisa, standing and walking over to the coat stand in the office. 'When he's stressed, I'm stressed.'

She unbuttoned her blouse and hung it on an empty peg before taking her extra change of shirt and slipping it on. After adjusting the comb that held her long hair in place, she put on her cream-coloured suit jacket and straightened the golden Bay Club name tag affixed to her chest. With a sigh, she stood straight and turned back to Inez, following her out into the main hall of the members-only section of the club. It was the time of year when the Parade of Roses was being held in Pasadena, so people in town for the parade and bowl game were packed into the resort despite Pasadena being a good hour away. Newport Beach was much more of a draw for tourists, especially because boats for Santa Catalina Island left from the port in the city. Basically the entire hotel had been booked since the Boat Parade in mid-December, and whenever there were non-members flooding the club, the members were always up in arms--in other words, she was constantly dealing with both prima-donna hotel guests who thought that because the Bay Club was more expensive than other area hotels, they were to be treated like royalty, and the people who had been members since the club had opened as a members-only social club back in the 1950s and were righteously angry when the people who weren't paying thousands of dollars a year for membership were treated better than they were. Even Jackson had once come to the club with a client, and the service was so terrible that Jackson immediately cancelled their membership and exclusively dined at the Big Canyon Country Club.

Lisa, however, was only in charge of hotel guests, so whenever she received complaints from people, club members or her husband, she simply passed them on to the people in the membership office on the much more luxurious members side.

Inez opened the heavy doors of the building and they walked out past the vine-covered pillars across the view of the Balboa Bay and Lido Island then past the valet parking booth and into the lobby of the main building, which was packed with people ludicrous enough to be dressed in swimsuits and actually expecting to swim in the bay during the first week of January. An angry member was yelling at the desk attendant about how her accommodations weren't as up to par as they'd been in the past, and as Lisa and Inez walked in, the young blonde looked up with obvious relief.

'Miss Howard, I'm sure our hotel manager would be more than happy to talk with you about this,' the attendant said as Lisa stepped up behind the angry woman. 'Here she is right now. Miss Howard, I'd like you to meet Lisa Rippner.'

The woman whipped around and Lisa gave a startled smile before putting out her hand awkwardly. 'It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss Howard. Would you care to come into the members area where we can discuss this more intimately?'

Miss Howard shook Lisa's hand with a loud sigh. 'That sounds wonderful. Please, call me Sophia.'

'Right this way, Sophia,' said Lisa diplomatically as Inez disappeared behind the counter.

The two women walked past the jewellery shop and down the wide hallway until they were almost to the First Cabin, then took a left and went up a flight of stairs to the members-only section of the main building. The place was empty except for a couple of people who were setting the tables in preparation for lunch, so Lisa led Sophia to the bar area and they settled at a table near the huge windows looking out onto the bay. Lisa pulled out a small notebook from her suit pocket and smiled at the woman again.

'How can I make this up to you?'

Sophia shook her head. 'I'm just upset about the entire set-up here. This used to be a place where all of the employees knew each of the members' names, but now when I come here with my family, we can barely get room service and the rooms on the members' side have even decreased in quality. I think the next time we come into town, we'll just stay at the Four Seasons in Fashion Island. This just isn't worth it anymore.'

Lisa nodded slowly. 'I'm sorry to hear that, Sophia. I promise you that I'll do everything to make the rest of your stay--'

Her face reddened a bit as her mobile rang on her hip. With a mumbled apology to Sophia Howard, Lisa glanced down at the phone's display and saw that an unknown number was calling the phone at the exact moment that she realised she'd somehow picked up her husband's phone at the beginning of the day. She was tempted to answer it, but figured it best to let it switch over to voice mail rather than risk talking to one of his clients. Silencing the mobile, she smiled again at Sophia, but before she could slip the phone back in the carrier on her waistband, it was vibrating again. Inwardly grumbling, she ignored it, but for the next twenty minutes, it vibrated constantly against her hip. After Sophia was appeased and Lisa was able to slip into an unoccupied conference room, she looked at the screen and gaped at the twenty-three missed calls from the same number. She picked up the landline phone from its cradle on the conference table and dialled Jackson's office number.

'Jackson Rippner,' he answered professionally, and Lisa could hear him shuffling papers around on his desk.

'Hi,' she said meekly, pressing a button to bring the mobile's screen flickering back to life. 'I picked up your phone by accident this morning, and someone's really aching to get a hold of you.'

'What's the number?' Jackson asked casually.

She shook her head. 'I don't recognise it. Zero, zero, six, six, zero, two--'

'How many digits?' he asked.

She counted under her breath. Thirteen.'

There was a moment of silence. 'Who would be calling me from Bangkok?'

'How did you--'

'Sixty-six is the calling code for Thailand and two is the area code for Bangkok,' he said quite matter-of-factly as though international calling codes were known by the general populace.

'They've called twenty-three times. Should I answer it if it rings again?'

'No,' replied Jackson strongly before continuing with a more than slightly threatening tone. 'Never answer my phone.'

Lisa was a bit taken aback. 'I... I was planning to take my break soon. Would you like me to drive your phone into Costa Mesa?'

'No, don't bother. The traffic's horrible today,' he said with resignation. 'I'll see you when I get home tonight.'

'I love you,' she said softly.

Her response was the phone clicking into its cradle.

---

Carrigan, Davenport & Associates was one of the largest and best established management firms in the Orange County area. When Jackson applied to the firm nearly seven years earlier, the company had been in a huge downswing, but after a short while and a lot of what Jackson considered run-of-the-mill work, the firm was able to make numbers with no problem. The multilingual Jackson was considered a Godsend to them as the general Southern California region was a mixing pot for people from everywhere, so with Jackson as one of their managers, they were able to take people from Russia, Germany, the Czech Republic, Arabic and Francophone countries whereas before they dealt exclusively with English- and Spanish-speaking customers. The heads of the firm were surprised that an MBA from Miami, Florida would have such a grasp of technical language related specifically to management such as technology implementation terminology and the ability to discuss managing methodologies with the customers, but as long as he did his job, there was no reason to really question his reasons for being able to do it.

He moved quickly up the ranks and now sat on or above the level of Carrigan and Davenport, but when asked by the two whether he'd be interested in becoming a partner in the firm, he agreed on the stipulation that his name not appear in the company's name. The two were a bit confused, but again, as long as Jackson Rippner did his job, there was no reason to push him to accept Carrigan, Davenport, Rippner & Associates rather than the prior. Besides, he already had a strong enough client base that the added validity of naming was really unneeded.

With his high status in the company, he'd gone about creating strategies from within. After a year-long study of local population and small businesses in the area, Jackson determined where the holes were in their business, more specifically regarding linguistics. The area's demographics leaned heavily to Asians, so after a bit more research, Jackson decided that the best course of action was to hire managers for Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese projects. After a very specific search, the triumvirate chose two people: an ethnic Chinese from Vietnam named Leigh Shen and a Japanese man named Hideyoshi Tsukioka. Each had been working there for about a year and a half, but Jackson found Leigh much easier to deal with. Hideyoshi was great at his job and brought in a lot of good income from the Japanese businesses in the area, but he was decidedly anti-social, so when he willingly came up to Jackson by the vending machine that day, Jackson was already on edge.

The room that the machine was in was one of those unfeeling white-and-tile rooms that made up every office break room. Jackson was alone contemplating the complicated question of Skittles or Starburst when he felt someone watching him. Dropping his coins into the machine, he tried to see the reflection in the glass, unsure of whether the organisation would send someone after him and preparing himself to defensively attack if needed. He was relieved when he saw the young Japanese man pushing up his glasses in the reflection, but his interest was piqued.

'Hello, Hideyoshi,' he said smoothly without turning and he could see him flinching a bit in the reflection. 'Do you need something?'

Hideyoshi laughed uncomfortably and held up seventy-five cents in his palm. 'I... I came to get some Reese's Cups.'

'Good choice,' Jackson replied smoothly, swooping down to pick up his Skittles. He ripped open the package and popped one of the strawberries into his mouth. 'Enjoy.'

He was almost out the door when Hideyoshi cleared his throat. 'You've been... popular today.'

'Hm?' questioned Jackson, turning as he threw a motley assortment of Skittles flavours into his mouth.

'Your phone's been ringing a lot,' Hideyoshi replied, rubbing the back of his head.

'I didn't realise you were close enough to my office to hear my phone,' Jackson said, knitting together his brow. 'Have I been getting a lot of calls today, really?'

Hideyoshi swallowed. 'Not on your office phone, your... your mobile phone.'

Jackson's hand tightened on the package of Skittles and a couple popped out to tap on the floor. 'You must have been out of your office a lot to hear it.'

'I've been taking a lot of files around,' he replied with a half-smile.

'Oh, no, I mean you must have been _out_ of the office.'

'I don't understand,' said Hideyoshi, pressing the button to make his Reese's Cups drop down; he bent down and picked them up, hearing Jackson close the door to the break room.

'You must have been down in Newport Beach all day,' Jackson said as he locked the door. 'Because my wife has my mobile.'

Hideyoshi stood up slowly and turned to look at Jackson. There was a long pause before Jackson quickly crossed the room and shoved Hideyoshi against the vending machine, his forearm pressed harshly to the Japanese man's throat. Hideyoshi grasped at Jackson's arm, but that just made him push harder against his windpipe, his blue eyes blazing.

'Who are you?!' Jackson demanded in a hissing tone, punching Hideyoshi in the stomach before dropping him.

Holding his stomach, Hideyoshi crumpled to the floor. 'I... I'm--'

Growling, Jackson pulled his foot back and brought it forward hard to kick him in the stomach. 'You're working for the organisation, aren't you?'

'I don't know what you're talking about...' wheezed Hideyoshi, curling up into the foetal position as Jackson pulled back his foot again. 'No! No, please...'

Jackson gritted his teeth together. 'You have ten seconds.'

'My little sister-in-law... she needed your number. She... she didn't say why she needed it, but she told me that if... that if I didn't give it to her, she'd... she'd kill my wife.'

Jackson raised an eyebrow and relaxed his leg. 'What's your sister-in-law's name?'

'Miwa,' Hideyoshi said, his voice still threaded. 'Miwa Takahashi.'

In a flash, Jackson yanked Hideyoshi up by his suit jacket and shoved him into a chair next to the table in the room. 'Where does she work?'

'I don't know.'

Jackson raised his hand back and slapped the other man across the face. 'I asked you a question. Where does she work?!'

'I'm not lying to you!' Hideyoshi said, tears gathering at the edges of his eyes. 'Please, I just... I just wanted to protect my wife. You have to understand, you just have to--'

Again, Jackson's forearm found its way to Hideyoshi's throat. His knees were on either side of the man's leg, and although Hideyoshi was thrashing about, Jackson was able to keep him in his grasp.

'Tell me where she works, what she does, where she lives--tell me anything!' Jackson said from behind clenched teeth. 'And tell me why you knew she called me so many times today.'

After Jackson released him, Hideyoshi took a couple of deep breaths before speaking. 'She called me earlier and accused me of giving her the wrong telephone number and said that she wouldn't call off the hit-man in front of my house until she speaks with you.'

'Why does she want to talk to me?'

'She won't tell me,' he said, tears now flowing freely down her face. 'You have to believe me, Mr Rippner. I have no reason to lie to you; I just want to keep my wife safe.'

There was a knocking at the door and the sound of Cara Davenport's voice drifted through the metal. 'Who's in there? Is everything all right?'

'Everything's fine, Cara,' Jackson replied, pressing his hand to Hideyoshi's mouth.

'Jackson, why is the door locked?' she asked, and Jackson could hear her trying to turn the handle.

'I must have accidentally pushed the lock when I closed the door,' he lied, looking down at Hideyoshi. 'I'll be back in my office in a couple of minutes--Hideyoshi just had a couple of questions for me.'

'Oh, all right,' she replied, and in a moment, he could hear her walking away.

When the coast was clear, Jackson removed his hand. 'What can you tell me about Miwa?'

'She doesn't really associate with the family at all,' he said nervously. 'I think she lives in Thailand or Cambodia, but I'm not certain. I don't know what she does for a job, but I know... I know that she spent her school years in boarding school for juvenile delinquents. When she was in primary school, she killed a group of classmates by... by lighting the classroom on fire after dousing the children in gasoline.'

Jackson was taken aback. 'You have no idea what she did after that though?'

Hideyoshi shook his head fervently. 'She went to college. She went to Tokyo University because she excelled in her studies despite mental and psychological problems.'

'Did your parents-in-law pay for her schooling?'

'No,' he said, his hands shaking. 'She was the winner of a World Society Scholarship.'


	6. Chapter 6

As the end of her work day crept closer and closer, Lisa found herself staring at the clock on her office wall rather than actually accomplishing anything. The end of her work day was always the slowest part; it was the lull in check-ins between the three o'clock and six o'clock rushes. Most days, as time ticked down those last fifteen minutes to four-thirty, she would busy herself with filing papers or running around to do last minute checks with the spa, salon and restaurant workers. Today, however, she was more interested in getting the kids home and waiting the thirty minutes or so after she got home for Jackson to get home and offer up an explanation for the calls on his cell phone. After all, he couldn't avoid her, and she had things she could hold back from him to make him talk. With that thought, she smiled and watched the minutes hand click over to the six. Stretching, she grabbed her purse and walked to the door. When she opened the door, however, she almost fell backwards in surprise when she nearly ran into Inez.

'Inez!' she exclaimed, pressing a hand to her chest. 'Are you trying to kill me?'

The woman's eyebrows knit together and she looked generally upset by Lisa's insinuation.

'It's only a figure of speech,' explained Lisa, blushing as she tried to step past Inez, but the woman blocked her from getting past.

'No, it's not that,' Inez replied in a soft voice. 'It's that... you're right.'

'I'm sorry?'

There was the rustle of fabric and the sound of metal on metal as Inez took a step closer to Lisa and pressed the barrel of a gun into her stomach. Lisa tensed against the woman's shaking touch and swallowed as Inez spoke in a wavering voice.

'Please, Lisa, walk to your car without any ado,' she said, and Lisa realised that she was probably handling this situation better than her co-worker. 'I don't want to have to... to kill you.'

She hazarded a glance at Inez's face and noticed that tears were gathering at the edges of her eyes. The other woman poked her a bit with the gun and watched as Lisa locked the door of her office, walking beside her as she went to the huge doors at the entrance of the members' area. Lisa behaved as she would at the end of any other work day, waving good-by to the valet staff as she crossed under the metal atrium in the drive on her way to the underground parking garage. There were no raised eyebrows at Inez walking with her because from time to time, the two of them had to use every minute to plan for the next shift, and that included the walk to Lisa's car. As they entered the parking structure, the sound of their high heels refracted from the concrete walls and Lisa felt Inez's breath close to her ear.

'I'm so sorry, Lisa, but they made me do it,' she murmured as they got to Lisa's SUV. 'Get in the passenger's seat.'

Lisa obeyed, but when Inez got in the car, she spoke. 'My kids... they're supposed to be picked up from school in ten minutes.'

'Someone else will take care of them,' replied the woman immediately, and after a moment, comprehension dawned on Lisa and she began crying, which upset Inez. 'Stop that!'

She put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking space before pressing the pedal and driving out into the sunshine of a California afternoon. No one in the gate house noticed as they drove by, and by the time they made it to Irvine Avenue, Inez seemed more angry than nervous. Her glance kept flittering to Lisa, who was crying silently with her hand pressed hard against her mouth. Inez's fingers tapped endlessly as they waited at the first of two lights between the Coast Highway and the turn into the Rippners' neighbourhood.

'Why are you doing this, Inez?' Lisa asked in a tiny voice as they turned right into Dover Shores. 'Who made you do this?'

Her grip on the steering wheel tightened and Lisa could see angry tears at the corner of her eye as they made their way to the bay vista Antigua Way. No other cars were in the driveway, but just as Inez put the car into park, the cell phone sitting in the console vibrated and she panicked, shoving her elbow forcefully against it, crushing the phone. Lisa jumped back against her window as Inez pulled out her gun and got out, aiming the gun at Lisa's head as she ordered her out of the car. Scupper, completely oblivious to what was going on, started jumping and wagging his tail when he saw Lisa. For a moment, Lisa thought that Inez was going to shoot the puppy, but once Lisa cut between the dog and Inez, she didn't bother. They went through the gate and Scupper jumped and licked Lisa as she unlocked the door and disarmed the security system. The dog tried to follow Lisa inside, but he was kicked away by Inez and scurried off to under the bushes.

'He gets food when we get home,' Lisa said as Inez closed and locked the door.

'He'll have to be hungry.'

They stood in stasis for a moment before Inez's phone rang.

"¿Qué hago yo con ella ahora?"

Lisa looked confused. Obviously Inez wasn't a manager, assassin, or, for that matter, a member of the World Society if she didn't have her plan already mapped to a conclusion. She had the sick feeling in her stomach that this was exactly like Jackson and herself when they first met, but instead of being the Lisa, she was Mrs Keefe, caught up in something her husband started. All she could hope at that time was that the rest of her family would escape unharmed or that Inez would come to her senses. That didn't seem to be the case, however, as Inez grabbed her roughly by the arm and dragged her to the kitchen. Lisa was calm up until the moment when her co-worker shoved her against the baker's table.

'The safe room,' Inez said succinctly, still holding the cell phone to her ear. 'Open it.'

Lisa swallowed. 'I... I don't know what you're--'

Gritting her teeth, Inez pulled her hand back and slapped Lisa so hard with the cell phone that she jammed against the granite countertop of the baker's table. 'I know the layout of the house, Lisa. Just open the safe room!'

After a short staring contest, Lisa's face fell and she dropped to her knees to climb under the table. She pushed aside all of the ceramic bowls and opened the cabinet, looking at the upper left hand corner for the swipe sensor. There was a moment's pause before Lisa reached her thumb up and reluctantly ran it over the sensor, and once the locks began clicking out of place, Inez said her good-bys to the person on the other end of the call. Lisa pressed the door open to reveal a stark white room and was about to turn and climb down into it when Inez shoved her and she fell down the eight feet to the concrete floor. She watched in a drunken haze as Inez climbed down the ladder, closing the door above them.

As the door closed, the lights dimmed and an LCD screen in the corner flickered to life. On the monitor, there were views of the outside, the foyer, the living room, and directly outside of the safe room. Inez roughly pulled Lisa up by the back of her suit jacket and dragged her over to one of the two bunk-beds built into the wall on one side, throwing her down on the lowest of the beds. Lisa's head cracked against the steel-plated wall and she groaned, but quickly came to her senses as Inez pulled out the gun and aimed it at her. The bullet hit the mattress beside her and she gasped, taking only a second before connecting her feet and Inez's stomach. Inez grunted as she landed on her knees, grabbing her stomach before looking up to see Lisa's foot a moment before it cracked against her nose. She was still able to grab Lisa's ankle, however, and soon Lisa joined her on the floor. There was stunned silence between the two as Inez frantically dabbed at the blood free-flowing from her nose and Lisa blinked slowly against the throbbing pain in her head.

Lisa stumbled to her feet using the bunk-bed for support, and when her back was turned, Inez saw the children walking up to the front door on the LCD screen. She knew that if Lisa saw that the children were only right above them, there would be an even more vicious fight, especially if she couldn't get a clear shot at the other woman. Without a second thought, she flung herself at Lisa and knocked her onto the bed, grabbing a pillow at the same instant. Lisa thrashed under her as Inez pressed the pillow against her face. The exertion made more blood fall from Inez's nose, however, and soon the entire centre of the cotton was pooled with blood and Inez could feel her grip loosen on the object. A moment later, she was on the floor with a much more angry Lisa Rippner straddled over her, her hands pressed hard against Inez's shoulders as her nails dug into her already bruising skin.

'You don't have to do any of this!' growled Lisa, but she looked more pissed than forgiving. 'You can leave right now and we can pretend none of this happened. You can call off whoever you sent after my children and whoever's been calling my husband and we can all go back to our regular lives.'

'It's not that easy,' said Inez before coughing up some of the blood that she'd swallowed accidentally. 'I'm just being used in this.'

'And you think Jackson and I aren't?' screamed Lisa, shoving her hands harder against Inez's clavicle. 'Jackson _retired_. He's not in the business anymore.'

'Well, my husband is still in, and I have my commands,' she hissed, finally gathering her wits about her and kicking Lisa off of her. 'And those commands are to kill you.'

As Lisa rolled away from her, Inez's arm shot out and grabbed the gun, which had slid under the bed. By the time Lisa got to her feet, Inez was in a shooting stance and all Lisa could think to do was back away from the woman.

'I don't understand,' said Lisa, swallowing against her dry throat. 'Why does the organisation want to kill us? Jackson is supposed to inherit the organisation.'

'There's been a change of plans,' explained Inez as she took a step closer to Lisa. 'It is in our best interests to assure that your husband never comes to be the head.'

'But he doesn't want the position!' exclaimed Lisa, exasperated. 'We just want to live our normal lives here with our kids.'

'Sometimes the past comes back to haunt you,' murmured Inez as she cocked the gun.

Lisa pressed against the wall, feeling if there was anything she could use in her defence that she hadn't noticed before, but she could feel nothing. As the woman moved in for a point blank shot, Lisa looked past her to see Jackson entering the foyer. Seeing his face emboldened her, and when she looked back to Inez, she was filled with a new, deadly resolve. When the woman came within her reach, Lisa flung herself on her and they rolled about on the floor until there was a single gunshot and blood splattered all over the wall.

---

Lisa wasn't answering her (well, technically his) cell phone.

As Jackson sped along Irvine Avenue towards Dover Shores, he looked angrily across the Back Bay to the lights of Fashion Island. Setting his jaw, he ignored a red light and turned sharply onto Santiago Drive, almost having a car ram into the side of his own, but not caring. He sped away as the driver flipped him off and kindly ignored each additional stop sign on his way to Antigua Way. Narrowly missing a biker, he screeched into his driveway and careened to a stop inches from the back of Lisa's car. He jumped out of the car, not bothering to close the door, and strode to the gate that lead to their front door. Well-groomed gardens greeted him inside, but much to his concern, Scupper didn't.

The gate clicked closed quietly and hearing a light rustling in the bushes, Jackson pulled a handgun from the pocket of the vest of his formal suit. He cocked it before seeing a black nose peek through the eucalyptus bushes followed by a whining snout and a couple of huge paws crawling army-style through the soil. Jackson carefully and quietly dropped down to crouch and put his arms out.

'Scupper,' he whispered. 'Come here, boy.'

Soulful brown eyes met with Jackson's and soon the golden-haired dog was standing in front of him, licking his face as he continued to whimper. Without much thought, Jackson picked up the animal and opened the gate again, walking over to check if Lisa's door was unlocked. It was, and as he set Scupper down on the back seat and convinced him to stay with a biscuit, Jackson noticed that Lisa's cell phone was sitting on the centre console completely smashed to pieces. Narrowing his eyes, he slipped back over to the gate, and with one last look at Scupper through the black iron, went to the front door with his concealed gun and walked in as he normally would on any normal work day.

'Lisa,' he called. 'Kids, I'm home.'

There was a scramble of activity before a single set of footsteps began their way towards the foyer. He looked over to see little Adalia, her arms around her ragged old bunny and still dressed in her school uniform with her hair in a bright red bow atop her head, her brown curls spilling down her back. She walked mechanically over to him, shuffling her feet along the carpet as she went. Jackson jutted his lip out at her.

'Are you not feeling well?' he asked as he dropped to her level, and she cosied up to him, sucking her thumb loudly next to his ear. 'Adalia, don't suck your thumb.'

'I can't help it, Daddy,' she replied softly. 'I don't know how to solve this.'

'Solve what?' asked Jackson as her silent tears started soaking through his shirt.

'Hediyeh and Matthew and Jonathan and I know how to get out,' she replied with a serious tone, but her voice cracked as she continued. 'But we can't figure out how to save Mommy. Is that why you're here, Daddy? Is it because we didn't pass this test?'

'Honey,' he said, holding her out an arm's length from her. 'What are you talking about?'

'The person who took Mommy,' sobbed Adalia, rubbing at her eyes with her rabbit's ears. 'The person took her into the panic room and we don't know how to get in there. Daddy, why did you do this?'

Adalia glared at him through her tears, her clear green eyes intense, but he wasn't one to be taken down by a six-year-old. 'I didn't do this, Adalia. I don't even know what you're talking about.'

'Then why did you come home before you usually do?' she sniffled, again rubbing at her face with the long cotton ears.

'Mommy wasn't answering her cell phone, so I got worried,' he said, cupping the side of her face in his hand. 'Who destroyed Mommy's mobile phone?'

'I don't know. I can't see her.'

'We had to get a ride home,' said Hediyeh, standing at the door frame with one hand holding Matthew's. 'Maman never came to pick us up, so we took the city bus. We just know she's in the panic room because we can hear them in there every now and then.'

'Is Dad home?' asked Jonathan, coming around the corner and peeking over Hediyeh's shoulder. 'Dad, we've been working since we got home and we can't figure this one out. Are you mad?'

'I already told your sister--,' started Jackson, but then there was a muffled gunshot. Jackson perked up and looked to the centre of the house. 'Kids, I want you to go out to Mommy's car and get in with Scupper. Everyone buckle up and turn on the engine.'

Without a question, the children piled past him, Hediyeh scooping up the sobbing Adalia as she passed. As the door closed, the house fell silent and Jackson made his way stealthily to the island in the kitchen. He circled around it, looking down at the granite countertop until it depressed to become the baker's stone, at which time he squatted down and looked at the smashed bowls littering the area in front of the wood panel under the stone. Reaching out, he slipped his fingers under the ornately carved cabinet front and pried it open, pulling it towards him and looking at the tiny pad of the swipe sensor module of the door in front of him. He was about to run his finger over the sensor when he heard the system of locks clicking and unlocking. In shock, he fell backwards atop the ceramic shards before quickly regaining his composure and grabbing a rolling pin that was hanging off of the stone. He'd always been better at inflicting blunt trauma.

The door creaked open and a bloody hand crept out into his vision. Gritting his teeth together, Jackson held the rolling pin high above his head until sweat-flattened curls and red-lined green eyes looked at him from over the edge of the high door. He dropped the pin and scoot past the ceramic shards as Lisa's eyes filled with tears. Weaving his hands under her arms, he pulled her out of the mostly underground panic room and held her tightly as he looked questioningly down into the room, whose once pure white walls were splattered with blood, and saw the crumpled body of a woman against one wall.

'I-I-I did-I did what I thought you'd do,' she choked, burying her face in Jackson's suit jacket as he grabbed at the front of his vest.

'Who is that...?' asked Jackson with curiosity, only able to tell that it was a former employee of the Balboa Bay Club because of her golden name tag; her face was completely destroyed by a point-blank bullet to the forehead.

'Inez,' Lisa sobbed. 'My assistant manager.'

'Your--'

'She has two kids, Jackson! And she's a single mother!' Lisa screamed, pulling at his vest more.

'What happened?' he asked with concern, pressing her against his shoulder again to make her stop screaming.

'She got me as I was leaving work,' she muttered, reaching up to hold his upper arms. 'Right outside my office. She took me to my car at gunpoint and then brought me back here... she knew where the panic room was and told me to key--'

Her view shot over to the microwave.

'Oh God, the kids!' she said suddenly, fighting against his grasp. 'The kids were at school, Jackson! What if they got them at school?'

'Leese, calm down!' he said, but she'd already broken from his grip and was running towards the front door. 'Leese, I already sent them to the car. Go out and get in with them, and take this.'

He threw the gun at her and she deftly caught it before going out the front door and leaving Jackson alone to do the cleanup, which was definitely a specialty of his. Walking over to the sink, he pulled out an old, dust-covered bottle of lemon Stolichnaya, some dishwashing detergent, a cork and a towel. Ignoring the shards of ceramic, he slipped through the small door and climbed down the ladder inside to enter the large, bright room. His footsteps echoed as he walked over to the body with narrowed eyes. As he looked at the dead woman, he lit a cigarette and sat across from her with his legs Indian-style, holding the fag tenaciously between his teeth as he soaked the towel in vodka. He blew the smoke from the cigarette onto the woman.

'I don't think we ever met,' he said as he poured the dish-washing detergent into the remaining vodka.

Putting his finger over the hole, he shook the bottle until the detergent made a paste with the vodka. He put the cork in and then wrapped the drenched towel around the short neck of the bottle, and then curiosity hit him. Setting down the bottle, he crawled over to Inez and rifled through the suit jacket she wore, pulling out her wallet. He flipped it open and his eyes widened for a moment before he clumsily stood. After standing, took his cigarette from his mouth and pressed the lit end against the vodka towel. It caught and Jackson stared at the flame before dropping the cigarette on Inez's legs and stepping back to throw the Molotov cocktail on the wall just above her head. The bottle smashed and the concoction inside quickly caught and slithered down to her shoulders and face, quickly burning and sticking to her flesh and clothing. Without a look back, Jackson climbed out of the room and locked it behind him, carefully slipping the cabinet panel back into position.

As the room below him burned completely, the fire contained in the safe-like interior, Jackson calmly walked to the pantry and grabbed some snacks for the kids and biscuits for the dog. He dropped them in a basket and walked to the door, whistling softly as he went. He locked the door and went to the gate, where he stood looking at Lisa, who was still holding the gun and gaping at his car. Holding the basket loosely to the side, he pushed open the gate and smiled at her.

'Get in the car, Lisa.'

She looked at him with wide eyes. 'Where are you taking us?'

He smiled more. 'Get in the car.'

Furrowing her brow, she stepped backwards and felt blindly for the door handle. 'Who is that?'

Jackson sighed a bit as he looked at bound Japanese man in the passenger seat of his car. The man looked between them, gnawing uselessly at the gag in his mouth. The beeping of the ajar car door echoed off of the garage door and mingled with the sound of Jackson putting his hand in his suit pocket. He simply shrugged as he turned back to Lisa with the emotionless face that she hadn't seen in at least six years.

'Just an associate from work,' he replied.

'Well...' she blinked slowly at him. 'Let him go.'

He stared at her before moving to the passenger's side and opening the door to untie Hideyoshi. Lisa pressed back against the cool metal before pressing her lips together and turning to open the door. As she cracked it open, however, Jackson's hand came over her shoulder and pressed it shut again as he held himself against her, his breath warm against her ear.

'They will soon hear of me with my funny little games,' he purred, nuzzling his nose into her curls.

She turned to look at him. 'Jackson, you're really--'

'You're lying to me,' he replied, his teeth clenched together. 'That woman was Inez Valencia, the wife of one of the most pivotal members of the World Society, and you knew that. She told you.'

'I promise I didn't know until--'

'I know for a fact that the Valencias don't have any children,' he hissed, pressing her against the metal and reaching up with one hand to squeeze her jaw. 'You know I don't like lying, and yet you still manage to do it.'

Her voice was shaky when she answered. 'You're scaring me.'

He smiled lightly. 'Good. That'll keep you on your toes.'

His lips joined hers, and although he closed his eyes, hers remained open and startled as tears ran down her cheeks. After he broke the kiss, he tapped her cheek lightly and then went around to the back of the car, putting the basket in the area behind the seat in which Adalia and Matthew were sitting. Matthew immediately slithered down from his seat and grabbed a handful of snacks for he and his siblings, and by the time Jackson got around to the driver's side and sat down, Adalia had already broken off a piece of her granola bar and was feeding it to Scupper. Jackson made a face at her as he opened the console and retrieved a container of hand wash, and as he was squeezing it into her outstretched hands, Jonathan rolled down his window and looked at Lisa.

'Mom,' he said urgently. 'You need to get in the car.'

She gave him a blank look before opening the door and slipping in. Jonathan gave a concerned glance to Hediyeh, but she was too busy glaring at Jackson in the rear-view mirror to notice.

'Where are we going?' asked Matthew through a mouthful of granola bar.

Jackson looked over at Lisa and spoke quite simply. 'The train station.'


	7. Chapter 7

Never did Anaïs Vioget imagine that she would be fleeing the neutral country of Switzerland under the cover of night, especially not with two critical patients and a retinue of survivors from the massacre at Poulain's estate. But on that cold January night, the eight people were carefully and slowly moving their way towards the closest neutral state, Liechtenstein, in a plan formulated by Lyna, who was leading the group. It wasn't until they crossed the border and entered the city of Schaan that everyone noticeably relaxed, and when they finally made it to the safe-house in the tiny village of Planken, the blur that had lived over them for the days since the massacre finally cleared.

Anaïs watched over Matthias Poulain as the doctors Lyna had lined up worked on him, reattaching his life support and hanging fresh bags from his IV stands. Next to him was Saeng Chaiyasan, the only survivor of the massacre in the board room, and standing over her was her second-in-command, Chiaki. Their safe-house was a tiny bunker left over from the second World War, so whilst the doctors and patients dwelled in one room, the only other room available for them was a tiny concrete-walled atrocity with bunk-beds lining the walls. Christopher Bayley, the only member of the Bayley family that they'd managed to smuggle out, had already fallen asleep on the bunk above Austin Dalby, the new leader of North America following the death of Melanie Watson. He was speaking in low tones to a woman on the bed shoved to the feet of his.

'You made the right choice,' he murmured to her, but she stayed with her hands under her head, staring at the bars of the bunk above her. 'Your uncle would want you to be here.'

'But I don't work under my uncle,' she replied. 'I work under Ghodsi Pedram, and once she notices I'm gone, she's going to go looking for me.'

'Lyna already killed other people under Pedram,' Austin said to ease her worries. 'Most likely, Pedram will think you've been allotted the same fate.'

She sighed and turned to look at him with sad green eyes. 'They're going to find you all because of me.'

'You're giving them too much credit,' he said with a little smile.

'They killed half of the board and two of the seconds,' she replied in a strained voice.

He pulled himself closer to him and pushed back her dyed auburn hair from her face. 'Everything will work out.'

'Phoebe,' said Lyna from across the room. 'Your uncle is awake.'

Startled, Phoebe Couturier stumbled out of the bed, tripping over her shoes as she made her way to the next room. Austin followed after her, walking over to stand by Chiaki, who was pacing next to the bed of Saeng and talking very quickly in Thai into the encrypted phone that hung on the wall. Phoebe reached out and took her uncle's hand, smiling into his clear blue eyes.

'Oncle Matthias,' she said softly. 'Comment vas-tu?'

'Phébi,' he replied from behind the oxygen mask. 'Où est Jackson?'

'Oncle...' she said with a squeeze to his hand. 'He's not a member anymore. We can't just go take him from his family; he's worked way too hard to have them.'

He gave her a dark look. 'I gave Anaïs a command. Did she not listen?'

'Monsieur,' said Anaïs from his other side. 'We did not allow the board to name your--'

But Poulain had already looked over to see Saeng Chaiyasan, who was laying still and intubated. 'What happened?'

'There was an incident...' Phoebe murmured as she straightened his hair. 'Nothing too much to worry about.'

'Le réalité et toi, vous ne vous entendez pas, n'est-ce pas?'

Phoebe's smile turned very uncomfortable. 'There were some fatalities, I won't lie to you.'

'That's a girl,' said Poulain. 'Now, what happened?'

'What do you _mean_ you didn't get him?' Chiaki suddenly screamed, kicking the wall in anger. 'You had a simple task--you even had the connections to make it easier!'

Everyone was staring at Chiaki, but she was too absorbed in her conversation to notice.

'My contact ruined it,' hissed Miwa Takahashi, half a world away in California. 'He let Rippner know our intentions and he fled.'

'Why would he flee? Did you tell him that you were going to kill him?'

'No!' screamed Miwa into the phone. 'I tried to call him and explain it to him calmly on the phone, but there was a kink in the plan. My brother-in-law was to find out why Rippner wasn't answering his phone, but he didn't handle it well... and then there were extenuating circumstances.'

'What do you mean by that?'

'Someone else was already after the Rippners,' replied Miwa, her voice dropping. 'I'm at their house right now, and from the security footage, I can tell you that someone tried to kill Lisa Rippner today.'

'What?' gaped Chiaki. 'They already got to them?'

'Who?' Miwa asked. 'What aren't you telling me?'

Chiaki finally looked up to see the room staring at her and, in a sudden fit of modesty, turned her back to them and spoke quietly into the phone. 'There are some complications on this end. You need to find the Rippners immediately.'

'This isn't funny, Chiaki,' grumbled Miwa. 'I can't work without knowing the full story.'

'You can work when I tell you,' snapped Chiaki, and she could hear the surprise in Miwa's voice when she spoke again.

'Saeng sent me on this assignment,' she replied haughtily. 'If I hear it from Saeng, I'll go after them, but I'm not moving unless I hear it from someone higher than you.'

There was a long pause. 'Saeng isn't able to speak.'

The finality in her voice caught Miwa off-guard. 'I--'

'Find the Rippners,' Chiaki demanded. 'Lyna Melinyshyn finished an assignment today and will be flying into Mexico tomorrow to meet with you. By the time she arrives, you should have the exact location of the Rippners or there will be consequences.'

'Ye--Yes, ma'am,' replied Miwa. 'Moushiwake gozaimasen deshita. Sayounara.'

'Sayounara,' said Chiaki and then she hung up the phone, allowing her hand to rest on it for a moment before turning to the group, which now included Lyna, who was leaning against the far wall with her eyes half-closed. 'Lyna, you need to get on the next flight to Ciudad Juarez Airport.'

With just a nod, Lyna grabbed her bag and disappeared up the stairs that led above-ground.

---

A good eight hours later, the Rippners were on-board the Southwest Chief heading towards Chicago. The layout of rooms had changed since the they had last been on an AMTRAK, so as the two of them sat in their room on the far end of the sleeping car, below their feet, their four children laid sleeping in a compartment accessible solely through a narrow set of stairs that descended from a point where Lisa remembered a chair sat in their compartment on the terrifying train rides from New Orleans to Albany. It had been the absolute antithesis of a fun-filled family evening, to say the least, with an obnoxious ticket agent at the station in Needles who almost made them miss the train by insisting that her manager check all of the bills that Jackson handed her when he paid in cash for their trip to Miami and refused to accept Scupper's papers from obedience school that cleared him to travel on all forms of public transportation. The manager, of course, apologised profusely for the behaviour of the agent and held up the train until the Rippners could settle comfortably, but this wasn't done until after the twins were sobbing at the prospect of leaving behind their dog, Hediyeh was fruitlessly trying to calm down Jackson as he yelled at anyone about the ineptitude of the agent, and Lisa was outside, having grabbed up Jonathan as he started having an asthma attack and run outside to have him calm down and take a hit off of his inhaler. Needless to say, once they finally got on the train, the children weren't nearly as excited about riding it as they had been when their father first announced their destination.

After the children had fallen asleep, their parents sat silently next to each other in bed reading whatever they'd picked up at the petrol station they'd stopped at to fill the car Jackson had stolen outside of Apple Valley. Scupper slept peacefully on top of Lisa's feet and she'd occasionally reach down to stroke his head.

'I think we should leave the kids with Dad,' Lisa finally said in the blinking red light of a klaxon as they passed it in the middle of the Arizona desert.

'No,' Jackson said simply but forcefully as he turned the page of _The Week_ that he was reading.

'Excuse me?' Lisa asked, setting down the novel she was reading.

'No,' he replied, turning to look her straight in the eyes.

They stared at each other for a long while until the train slowed down at a station. Light filled the compartment and Scupper perked up; Jackson immediately reached out and grabbed a pack of cigarettes and the dog's lead, attaching the clasp to the d-ring on the top of his harness and slipping to the end of the bed to open the sliding door and walk out into the hallway. Scupper gladly followed after him, his tail wagging as Lisa gaped at both of them. A moment later, when people on the platform began moving to load the train, Lisa scrambled out after him.

By the time she reached the platform, Jackson was already standing in the yellow of a floodlight sticking out rather oddly from the side of the station's building. Scupper was just out of the light sniffing at the pebbles that made up the bulk of the ground and Jackson watched him with half-closed eyes as he leaned against the building smoking a cigarette, seemingly unfazed by the cool desert night. Lisa stood a few steps away from him before moving closer and leaning on her side, watching him with her arms crossed over her chest. He blew a puff of smoke into the air and it mingled with his breath which the cold caught as well. Reaching out, she took the cigarette from his hand and took a drag from it herself before dropping it on the ground and smashing it with a house shoe-covered foot.

'You promised you'd quit,' she said softly and blew out the smoke; it drifted after his.

He laughed a little and Scupper looked up, wagging his tail once more at the fleeting smile on his master's face. The light above Jackson's head blinked a bit before resuming its loud buzzing, the sound mingling with the normal groans and hisses of the train. Jackson reached out and rubbed her arm absently as she watched him pensively. The dog, already bored with the repetitious landscape, walked back to his humans and sat down, looking up at them with a nearly stereotypical puppy face. Lisa opened her mouth to speak, but before she could form any words, the deep whistle of the train sounded and people began moving back from the yellow line painted on the train platform. Sliding his hand down her arm, Jackson walked past her and out of the light.

'Jackson--' she started, walking after him as he made his way to the sleeper car.

He didn't hear her over the second sounding of the horn, or at least he pretended not to. As he stepped up into the car, he looked back at her for a fleeting instant, but it wasn't until she made it into the car and the attendant closed the door that he looked her straight in the eyes with clarity. The attendant disappeared up the stairs after glancing at the pass on Scupper's harness, and once they were alone, Jackson took a step closer to Lisa, holding loosely onto the lead in one hand as he held the bar near her head with the other. The train jolted forward and she grasped near his hand, the edge of her index finger brushing the fleshy part of his palm.

'When you were still in surgery in Hamah, Hediyeh came to see me,' he said to her, scanning her face. 'She thought that we were going to leave her in Syria.'

'But--' she began, but he reached up with the hand holding the lead and firmly pressed a finger against her lips.

'I promised her, standing outside of the nursery in that hospital in Hamah, that I would never leave her,' he said with dedication. 'Ever.'

Lisa's look softened, but Jackson didn't move his finger.

'I don't care how much of a burden it will be or how difficult it becomes, I'm not leaving the kids somewhere,' Jackson said, his look serious. 'I'm not going to have them think that their father left them. I'm going to protect them as tenaciously as I protected you and I will not pawn them off to someone else.'

She reached up and took his hand lightly, clasping it between her own. Really, there were no words that she could think of, so she just held on to him and led him over to the stairs, the dog following happily behind them, and once they made it to the room, Lisa went down to check the children as Jackson washed the taste of cigarette from his mouth. When she came back, Jackson was already laying in bed, the curtains drawn and the door locked. As the train crossed the border into New Mexico, Lisa and Jackson Rippner slept soundly with their dog at their feet and their children a mere metre away, comfortable for the moment and oblivious as to who was awaiting their arrival in La Junta only hours later.

---

'Mama, I don't want to eat anything,' murmured Adalia, holding her stomach and looking decidedly green. 'The train moves too much; it makes my tummy hurt a lot.'

'Look at my face,' said Hediyeh from across the table before setting her stance and staring at her younger sister.

Adalia looked for a moment but then shut her eyes. 'There's a picture of an orange behind you, and it bounces around.'

'Look out of the window, Addy,' said Jackson, looking at his younger daughter from across the aisle at the all boys table. 'Concentrate of the horizon and I'll get something for you.'

The train jerked horribly and Adalia groaned as she looked out of the window, dropping her head to Lisa's lap as she closed her eyes. Lisa ran her fingers through her daughter's hair as she watched Jackson talking to one of the uniformed AMTRAK employees standing in the service area. The employee nodded and disappeared down the stairs to the kitchen level as Jackson stood at the door, his arms crossed as he watched after him. In her mind's eye, everyone disappeared and the landscape outside darkened, leaving just the view of Jackson walking up the stairs wearing an AMTRAK uniform and looking considerably harried as he made his way towards her, encouraging her to eat and acting as though nothing at all had happened. This time, however, it was bright morning, and rather than encouraging her to eat, he was crouched down in the aisle and pressing a chewable tablet onto the tongue of their daughter. She watched him as he coached Adalia to chew the tablet despite the bitter taste, a look of absolute seriousness on his face. Once she'd chewed the pill, she reached out to put her arms around her father's shoulders, but he backed up, holding her arms down to her sides.

'You need to be a big girl, Adalia,' he said, looking her straight in the eyes. 'Daddy won't always be here for you to put your arms around when you don't feel well.'

The undertone of his statement wasn't lost on Lisa, who froze staring at him, nor was it lost on Hediyeh, who wasn't nearly as worried about bothering Jackson as Lisa was.

'What is that supposed to mean?' she asked harshly, looking across the table at Jackson as she held up her fork defensively.

'Why don't you take Adalia back to the room to lay down?' Jackson asked Lisa, completely ignoring Hediyeh. 'The man who got the medicine for Adalia said that we'll be arriving in La Junta in about a half-hour; she'll probably feel better if she can lay down for a bit, and then we can all walk around at the station.'

Lisa was going to protest, but Adalia immediately turned around and instead put her arms around her mother, pressing herself against her breast. Jackson stood and looked down at them, locking glares with Hediyeh for a brief instant before stepping aside to allow his wife and daughter out of the booth. Adalia rested her head on her mother's shoulder as she walked awkwardly to the door, kicking the bottom door button to open it. As she walked into the loud area between the cars, she looked back to see Jackson slipping in the booth across the table from Hediyeh.

Their car was two away from the dining car, so it was only a couple of minutes before Lisa was opening the door to their compartment. Scupper was laying on the couch and perked up as they walked in, wagging his tail as Lisa set down Adalia next to him. She nuzzled her face into his fur and he let out a little sigh before setting his head back down, watching with interest as Lisa grabbed a blanket and threw it over Adalia.

'Do you need anything?'

'Don't leave me, Mommy,' she replied pleadingly. 'I don't want to be alone in the room.'

'I need to finish my breakfast, honey,' Lisa said, reaching down to brush a curl out of her daughter's face. 'Don't worry; we'll all be back in here before you know it, and Scupper will take care of you when I'm gone.'

Adalia was hesitant, but Lisa wasn't going to be offering her any leeway--she wanted to know what Jackson was talking to Hediyeh about. She leaned down and gave Adalia a little peck on the cheek before standing and closing the door behind her. Carefully, she walked to the end of the car and through the loud connector to the next, and had almost made it half-way when the train jolted and she was thrown forward, her face connecting harshly with the wall in front of her. She groaned and pressed her hand to her nose, looking up at the smear of blood coming down from the wall. Reaching up with the other hand, she pulled herself to her knees and tried to ascertain the cause of the jolt, but the only thing she noticed was that the power had gone out in the train.

Moments later, the doors of the compartments behind her started sliding open and people peeked out hesitantly, asking their neighbours if they knew what was going on. Finally someone in the compartment nearest Lisa looked out and saw the smear of blood on the wall and noticed Lisa sitting on the floor, her blouse covered in blood.

'Oh my God!' the woman said, scurrying over with a cloth napkin from her breakfast service and pulling Lisa's hand away from her face. 'Don't worry, I'm a nurse.'

The man in the compartment looked out after her. 'Shit, do you need water or something, Marie?'

'Yeah, and bring out the other napkins,' Marie said as she washed off Lisa's face. 'You're a bleeder, aren't you?'

Lisa looked between the two of them as the man peered down at her questioningly. She raised an eyebrow at his scrutiny before she began to worry if perhaps he was someone sent after her family. She tensed up under Marie's hand, pulling away from the woman.

'Oh, I'm sorry, did that hurt?' she asked, dabbing with a lighter hand. 'I think you might have broken it.'

'Who are you?' Lisa asked in an insinuating tone, pressing her head against the drawers behind her head.

'Well, I'm Marie, and that's Nate,' she replied quite matter-of-factly, moving her hand away from Lisa's nose. 'Nate, why don't you go see if you can get some ice from the dining car?'

Without a word, Nate began walking towards the dining car, passing Jonathan as the boy walked around the corner. He jumped a little at his mother's blood-covered blouse. 'Mom, what happened?'

Marie looked back at the boy. 'She had a run-in with the wall.'

Jonathan gave her the same worried look that Lisa had given her moments earlier before he walked over, his book under his arm, and put his hand under Lisa's elbow, beckoning her up as he kept his sight trained on Marie, who was now giving him an odd look.

'Let her sit for a little while,' she said, reaching out to swat away Jonathan's hand. 'If you want to help her, go get some orange juice or something.'

But Jonathan didn't move. Instead, he continued hovering over his mother, and after a moment, Marie tipped her head and looked between him and Lisa.

'Do I know you?' she asked, narrowing her eyes in thought.

Jonathan shook his head awkwardly.

'No, not you,' she said breezily.

There were footsteps and they all looked up to see Nate and Jackson followed by the remaining two Rippner children. Nate held a bundle of ice and some orange juice, and as he handed it to Marie, he grinned.

'Hey, look who I found in the dining car,' he said proudly. 'The guy who I traded cars with down in Alabama. You know, the one that _I_ was right about?'

'Oh man!' said Marie, pressing a bloody hand to her forehead. 'The Cohens!'

'No, dammit,' growled Nate, giving the orange juice to Jonathan, who stared at it. 'The Rippners. Remember, I was right about it being Jackson Rippner. Totally called that one.'

'Where is Adalia?' Jackson asked, not at all concerned with the conversation between the two younger people.

'You told me to take her to our room,' Lisa replied nervously. 'She's with the dog.'

Without a second thought, he stepped over Lisa and walked towards the end of the car, but before he could get to the doors, Lisa saw someone walk in front of the window on the other side of the connector. Jackson froze and grabbed blindly for the fire extinguisher before pressing the button to open the door. The one on the car they were in opened effortlessly, working on back-up power, but the door that Lisa had just gone through from the car in which they were staying wasn't responding. With a growl, Jackson aimed the extinguisher at the glass of the window, shoving it hard against the pane as Nate and Marie jumped back in concern.

'What--' started Marie, but at that moment, the sound of a gunshot followed by an explosion rent the air.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: This chapter caused a lot of uproar the first time it was posted, so be warned that this is a very graphic chapter.

---

When Lisa looked up from the ground, Marie was directly in her vision, groaning before pushing herself up the wall and onto her feet. It was then that Lisa could feel the heat of fire and her core filled with terror. Before she could get up, Nate was running gung-ho past her holding the fire extinguisher from the other end of the car, Hediyeh close on his heels. They crunched over broken glass as Matthew came over to help his brother help their mother up, and by the time Marie and Lisa were steadying each other, Nate was spraying the fire with the extinguisher. After barely waiting for the flames to die down, Hediyeh ran through the halon, oblivious to the burn as the chemical splashed onto her legs. Ignoring her father, she pushed out the remaining glass in the door and scrambled over it.

The initial shock left Lisa and Marie and they moved down the car, Lisa heading directly for her husband as Marie and Nate began checking in the compartments near the oxygen tank that had been hit. Jackson was sprawled by the door, badly cut and slightly singed, but by the time she'd reached him, he had raised his hand to his head and was moaning softly.

'Jackson,' said Lisa, dropping down next to him. 'Who was that?'

He blinked slowly, watching Marie and the boys take care of injured passengers.

Lisa grabbed him by the jaw and turned his face to her. 'Who was--'

She was unable to finished when Hediyeh suddenly screamed. 'Addy!'

Jackson, all at once completely lucid, shoved Lisa unceremoniously away from him as he got to his feet and followed Hediyeh's lead into the next car. Lisa was halfway over it when he spoke calmly, but with a wavering quality hidden under his words.

'Don't move her,' he said to Hediyeh, and Lisa landed on the other side of the door and was able to move around to see Hediyeh in the hall, her eyes wide as she looked in, a bloody hand covering her mouth. 'Go get an oxygen tank.'

Hediyeh ran off uncomfortably to the other end of the car and Lisa watched her before turning and gasping at the scene in front of her. Jackson was bent over Adalia, who was sprawled on the floor, her hand holding a fistful of the blanket Lisa had used to cover her. Her face was planted on the floor as though she'd fallen off of the couch, but under her, the carpet was stained red. He carefully turned her over, lifting her onto the couch as blood poured freely from her neck--his entire front was covered in their daughter's blood. Turning and looking at her with noticeable anger and fear in his eyes, he swallowed harshly.

'Leese,' he said as best he could, but she could see his resolve faltering. 'I need you to find someone with a cell phone and call 911 immediately.'

She heard him, but looking at the huge pool of blood that her husband was kneeling in and her daughter's once rubicund but now pallid skin, she couldn't will herself to move. There, on her daughter's neck, was a long, deep gash running from her one side to the other. Her hair was matted and sticking to the sides of her face--the pink sun-dress that she was wearing was untied on one shoulder and absolutely coated with cruor. Adalia stared straight up at the ceiling, her eyes unfocused and her mouth hanging open as she took horribly rattling breaths; she didn't even seem to notice that her father was next to her, looking at her hand as he squeezed over her fingernails. Setting her hand by her side, Jackson stood and wet a towel, not looking at Lisa as he ran the cold water over the cloth.

'I need you to make that call,' he said again, squeezing the excess water out; his movement brought both the coppery smell of blood and a horrible turpentine scent rolling into the hallway.

Hediyeh came up and shoved her way past Lisa, already holding the mask from the oxygen tank out in front of her. She squeezed behind Jackson and over to her sister, pressing the mask to her bloodied face before carefully opening the valve on the tank with tears running freely down her cheeks.

'No,' Jackson said as he leaned down and pressed the cloth to Adalia's neck. 'You need to go find someone with a cell phone and call emergency services, okay? Lisa, get in here and hold the mask.'

Jackson put his hand over the mask as Hediyeh stood and pulled Lisa into the room, her hands sticky with blood. 'Mamani, please...'

Lisa snapped back to reality and took her place next to Jackson, slipping her hand under his as he blotted carefully at the wound. Folding the cloth in half, he pressed the clean side firmly to her neck. Hediyeh came back with Nate's cellphone in hand and was speaking nervously to the dispatcher before handing off the phone to Jackson and taking over the task of stopping her sister's bleeding.

'Yes, she's been cut down to the windpipe,' Jackson said, walking towards the wall. 'All the way across her neck... the right internal carotid artery has been severed, and that's what's causing most of the bleeding... yes, yes, she's in haemorrhagic shock already. Now? We were about twenty minutes by train from La Junta, so we're somewhere between Trinidad and La Junta, probably running relatively close to the 350.'

As Jackson droned on with the dispatcher, Hediyeh lifted the cloth off Adalia's neck and was disheartened to see blood gush forth almost immediately. The little girl's lips were blue and as Hediyeh pressed her fingers to the other side of her sister's neck, she could feel her pulse increasing dramatically as the blood soaked through the towel. The younger girl's eyes were looking all over the room without focusing on anything, and when she started shivering uncontrollably, Hediyeh immediately began sobbing loudly.

'Hediyeh, calm down, and don't lift the towel,' said Jackson sternly. 'Go down into your room and get as many blankets as you can find.'

Wiping at her face with her sanguine hands, Hediyeh let go of the towel and Lisa pressed down hard on it. She went down the ladder to the lower room, her hands leaving long streaks of red on the metal bars. In a few seconds, blankets started shooting out of the hole.

'Scupper!' exclaimed Hediyeh and Jackson looked down the hole, expecting the worse, but rather, Hediyeh was on her knees with the dog licking her face happily. 'I think he bit the person who attacked Adalia... his face is all covered in blood and he has fabric in his mouth.'

The cell phone pressed to his shoulder, Jackson began carefully covering his shaking daughter with the blankets. The dispatcher hung up and Jackson just let the cell phone drop to the ground as he looked Adalia in the eyes and Lisa spoke. 'Come on, Addy. Don't close your eyes. Concentrate on Mommy, okay?'

Jackson looked at his wife sadly, but didn't make any move at explanation. Hediyeh came back up from the first floor with Adalia's ragged bunny and reached under the blankets to wrap her arms around the stuffed animal, inwardly cringing at how cold her sister's hands were. Jackson finished swaddling her and grabbed another towel, pressing it atop the completely soaked rag.

'Go get that lady from the other car,' Lisa said, looking at their older daughter. 'She's a nurse and has a first-aid kit.'

'Leese, there's not much else she can do that we're not already doing,' Jackson replied sadly. 'Go get your brothers; I want all of you to be where I can see you.'

Once Hediyeh left, Jackson reached awkwardly out and placed his hand on the small of Lisa's back.

'She doesn't feel it,' he said softly, and Lisa brought a hand up to wipe her eyes.

'How could she not feel it?' she asked with a choked-up voice.

'That turpentine smell,' he explained. 'I know you can smell it. It's ether. That's why she didn't scream, why she's not crying and why she can't focus on you.'

Her hand fell to cover her mouth and tears fell silently down her face as she readjusted the oxygen mask. 'Who was it? Who did this?'

'A woman I've worked with in the past,' he said vaguely. 'Only for one assignment, but she knows her chemicals well; she decided that Adalia deserved a painless--'

She turned her head sharply. 'No... no, Jackson...'

His response was to pull her closer to himself, cradling her waist under his hand, as they looked at their daughter. Taking his hand, Lisa pressed it onto the oxygen mask before descending the ladder and pushing Scupper up towards Adalia. The dog whined, his tail tucked between his back legs, as he walked over to her, laying his head down next to hers and licking the side of her face. Lisa sat beside the dog and watched a mere flicker of recognition float daintily across Adalia's green eyes; under the blankets, her arm moved and Jackson helped her place a hand on the dog's face. Reaching out, Lisa pushed some curls out of Adalia's wan face, touching her as tenderly as possible. She leaned down and pressed her forehead to the top of her daughter's head, watching carefully Jackson's actions and the arrhythmic rise and fall of Adalia's chest. Hediyeh led the boys in, encouraging them to ignore what was going on, and they sadly went down the ladder to the lower room.

Adalia furrowed her brow and tears started gathering at the edges of her eyes, so Jackson pointed to a discarded towel in the corner. 'Lisa, get that and pour some of the liquid from the bottle inside of it onto it, and then press it to her nose.'

'You want me to ether our daughter?'

He only nodded, so she reached awkwardly for the towel and a small bottle rolled out of it; the label was written completely in French. She poured the contents onto the towel, filling the room with the horrid scent again, but before she could get it to Adalia's nose, Adalia sobbed loudly, tightening her grip on her bunny. Frenzied, Lisa ripped off the mask and shoved the ether-filled cloth onto her daughter's face as Adalia looked up at her with pain and confusion. Not thirty seconds later, her head had gone lax, and when she began going into cardiac arrest, she only acted numb. His hand still on the towels, Jackson put his other arm across his daughter's legs to hold her still as her body responded to the stopping of her heart. Lisa, however, scrambled to do chest compression, squaring her arms over her daughter's chest and pushing before Jackson let the towels fall. At that moment, she noticed that there was no longer blood pumping out to the rhythm of a heartbeat and she fell to the floor, pulling her daughter into her arms.

'She didn't feel anything,' Jackson said, and his voice finally cracked. 'I promise you, she didn't feel any of it.'

But Lisa had her face buried against their daughter's chest, now unmoving and growing progressively colder, her sobs so deep that the sound couldn't even escape her being. As she pulled Adalia closer, the bunny fell on the floor, bouncing onto Jackson's legs as he watched his wife cradle their lifeless daughter and heard the sounds of emergency services approaching in the distance.

---

A mile or so away, Hélène Lacroix sat staring out the window of the rental car. She was moderately aware of her partner opening the door, slipping in and starting the car, but she couldn't bring herself to look at the man. They drove away, the billowing dust the only remnant of their time there. In the back seat, their manager picked up the phone and made a call to Marek Osikowicz.

'Osikowicz,' she said softly, and at that moment, Hélène realised that she wasn't the only one feeling regret over the assignment. 'This is Solveig. Adalia Rippner has been dealt with.'

There was a short conversation between the two before the car fell completely silent. It wasn't long, however, before Hélène started sniffling quietly. Nils Jensson looked over at her from the driver's seat, reaching out to rub her arm with a bitten and bloody hand. As he looked in the rear-view mirror, he could see his wife bent over, her head in her hands. Suddenly, Hélène leaned forward and threw up all over her feet, and when she sat up again, her face was blotchy and red, and she was sobbing.

'She was six years old!' screamed Hélène, looking over at Nils with an accusative stare. 'Six years old... she still had baby fat on her! She... she was...'

Hélène brought her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, her blonde hair covering her face.

'You did what you could, Hélène,' Nils replied as they turned on to a faster thoroughfare. 'She had no idea what was happening to her.'

'I can't understand why we have to kill them,' Hélène responded breathlessly. 'Jackson has no interest in returning to become the head of the organisation; he just wanted to live a quiet life with his family. Why does Pedram insist on eradicating them?'

The Norwegians had no answer for her, so they both just remained silent.

'What if it were your daughter?' Hélène asked delicately, looking with bloodshot eyes at Nils.

'We don't have a daughter,' he responded tersely, but Hélène could tell that he understood where she was coming from.

'Well, I do,' Hélène replied in a choked whisper, her thick French accent muddling her words. 'And even then, I cannot imagine what Lisa Rippner is going through right now. You become so intimately attached to the child, carrying it as part of you for months, and though it is ripped from you, you still feel an undying connection; the child is still part of you. To have her... it must have been like a part of her died.'

Solveig let out a loud sob and the clipboard on her knees thumped on the carpeted floor of the car. Nils gripped the steering wheel, grinding his teeth together.

'We already feel horrible enough about this job, Hélène... you needn't remind us of our transgressions,' he said in a harsh whisper. 'We did what we could to make it easier for her.'

'But what about her parents?' begged Hélène, her eyes wide. 'Her siblings?'

'Jackson knew what he was getting into--'

'His daughter had nothing to do with that!' she screamed, her fists quivering at her chest. 'She was an innocent, and Monsieur Poulain--'

She stopped as Nils back-handed her across the face. 'We do _not_ work under Poulain anymore.'

'At this point, it's about self-preservation,' murmured Solveig. 'Kill or be killed.'

'We all die,' replied Hélène, caressing the side of her face. 'What is unknown is when or where, and how. I fear that by this point, we're caught between two fates that are rapidly converging on one another: Pedram and her New World Society, and the innocent man whose child we just killed.'

There was a long silence before Solveig finally spoke. 'I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.'


	9. Chapter 9

Emergency personnel worked on Adalia for at least fifteen minutes after they moved her from the train into the ambulance, but Jackson knew from the moment he walked into the compartment and saw her lying on the floor where her sister had found her that their tiny daughter wasn't going to make it-there was simply too much blood already spilled. Although he made himself believe that he would remain stoic for Lisa and the children's sakes, once they were all in the back of the ambulance and Hediyeh reached under the white sheet to hold her little sister's hand, Jackson broke down and it was Lisa who wrapped her arms around him and held him to her chest as silent tears fell down her face. Jonathan's arms were around Hediyeh's waist and his head on her shoulder as he looked with almost stunned disbelief at the sheet in front of him. Matthew sat on the metal floor, his back to everyone as he gripped onto Adalia's bunny with one arm around Scupper's neck; the dog simply laid his shoulder on the boy's shoulder, his head pressed reassuringly to Matthew's.

At the hospital, there were councillors waiting, but the entire family was hesitant to speak with them. The doctors walked on eggshells around them, pressing cold compresses to Lisa's nose, applying salve to Hediyeh and Jackson's burns, and bandaging the glass cuts all over Jackson. Police were stationed at the door of their room once the doctors left, but then they were alone. After awhile, Jackson requested haloperidol for Hediyeh, and a few minutes later, a nurse appeared with a needle of the sedative and injected her with it. By early afternoon, the children were all asleep in separate beds in the room, their parents left to grieve on their own.

'What are we going to do, Jackson?' asked Lisa, looking at him with bloodshot eyes and a terribly bruised face. 'I never expected to out-live my daughter.'

Jackson had his hand held up to his face, his thumb under his chin as the fingers curled beneath his nose. He looked from the children back to his wife, who sat reclined on the bed in front of him. 'I don't know. There was never a moment when I thought I wouldn't be able to protect them.'

Lisa's brow pinched together as she began crying again, pressing her fingertips to her lips. When she finally spoke, she bounced her fingers nervously upon her lips. 'I thought we were finished with this.'

'I thought we were too,' he said, reaching out to take her other hand, but she pulled it away from him. He stared at the empty place on the crisp white sheet before closing his eyes.

'Why Addy?' asked Lisa, almost under her breath. 'What are they trying to prove?'

Jackson caught his fingers in his hair as he leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. He listened to the sounds of his wife sniffling and the splatter of her tears on the soft cotton of her scrubs, but without being able to think of a way to alleviate his own agony, he couldn't even begin to comprehend how to deal with hers.

'I don't want a funeral,' Lisa said, and he looked up to see her staring straight into his eyes. 'I don't want people coming up to me and saying that they know how I feel or telling me that it will be easier with time.'

He sat up straight, pushing his hair back from his face.

'I don't want our baby buried in the ground,' she said, the last part only barely spoken as her voice gave out.

His eyes filled with tears and he swallowed harshly, holding his arms out to her. There was slight hesitation before she slipped out of the bed and into his lap, laying her head against his shoulder as she wove the fingers of her left hand through his. He pressed his lips to her forehead before setting his chin atop her head, and when he spoke, she could feel the soothing rumble of his voice against her temple.

'When this is over, we'll take her ashes to Catalina,' he said, his voice noticeably strained as he nuzzled his chin deeper into her lank hair. 'We can go to the top of Mt Orizaba on a nice, warm day when the Santa Anas are blowing; we'll all be together, and we can go hiking and swimming and think about her before casting her ashes into the air so she can be completely free.'

'I think she'd like that,' said Lisa quietly with a ghost of a smile at the edge of her lips. 'She wouldn't want us to cry and be so sad.'

She reached up and took his chin in her hand, tipping his face down so that their noses brushed as they looked into one another's eyes.

'She would, however, want nothing to happen to her brothers and sister,' she said in a strained whisper. 'She would want her Daddy to go and take care of the boogieman.'

Late that night, halfway around the world, Melissa Bayley's cell phone display lit up, filling the darkness of the room. She made a move to pick it up, but it was instead grabbed by Ghodsi Pedram's second, who took it to her at Poulain's desk. She accepted the untraceable text message and watched it as the words scrolled across the screen, murmuring them to herself.

'"I love my work and want to start again... You will soon hear of me... with my funny little games... My knife's so nice and sharp I want to get to work right away... if I get a chance. Good Luck,'" she said, looking with utter confusion at the screen. 'What the hell does that mean?'

Melissa wasn't intending to tell her the truth, but unfortunately Marek Osikowicz's second, a young girl from Ireland, had obviously been steeped in British history over the years. 'It's from a letter.'

Pedram glared at the girl before speaking scathingly. 'Oh really, I had no idea.'

The girl adjusted the assault rifle in her hands, setting her jaw. 'Would you like to know the rest, or would you like to continue being better than me?'

Pedram narrowed her eyes, but didn't speak anymore.

'It's from the "Dear Boss" letter,' she said, and Pedram opened her mouth to say something, but she cut her off. 'The first letter from Jack the Ripper.'

'Vioget.'

'Anaïs, it is Lyna,' came a voice through thick static.

'What is it?' asked Anaïs, worry evident in her voice.

'Pedram got to the Rippners before we could,' the other woman replied, her voice low. 'We were waiting in La Junta for their arrival, but Pedram's people were able to attack them right outside of the city. By the time we got there, it was already too late and our plant on the train was already dead.'

'Too late?' she questioned, and Phoebe and Austin looked up from the comprehensive list of organisation operatives they were reviewing to look at her with concern.

There was a very long pause before Lyna spoke softly. 'They exsanguinated the younger daughter.'

Anaïs gaped. 'Who carried it out?'

'We have evidence from the compartment that Hélène Lacroix was involved - there was a bottle of diethyl ether with her handwriting on the label,' she said darkly. 'We can only assume that because Lacroix was there, so were Nils and Solveig Jensson.'

'Lacroix and the Jenssons-mark them off,' said Anaïs to the couple at the table before continuing. 'And the organisation member killed-who was it?'

'Miwa Takahashi,' said Lyna quickly. 'She was able to get on the train late last night and was patrolling the car that the Rippners were in. She was found strangled down the hall from the compartment.'

'If Takahashi was killed, then who is with you?' asked Anaïs, furrowing her brow.

'Danielle and Sharena,' Lyna replied. 'I need to speak to Dalby to receive further orders regarding this situation.'

Austin took the phone that was offered to him, suddenly shouldered with the dark realisation that Melanie Watson was, in fact, dead. 'Dalby.'


	10. Chapter 10

Jackson had only been to one funeral in his entire life. When his parents died, he'd been entrusted to his Aunt Edith for a short amount of time, and when it came time to bury them, she'd taken Jackson along for the funeral. He sat there in the front pew of the church watching as his aunt dabbed at her eyes and spoke to mourners. His parents were buried in shiny mahogany caskets, and his only really clear memory of the entire service was the thought that it was more of a pity that all of that mahogany was disappearing under the ground than it was that his encased parents were. He wasn't even sure that his aunt was as sad as she appeared to be, because once they left the sight of the mourners after the burial, her tears dried up and he didn't see them again until he took a butcher's knife and cut off three of his cousin's fingers.

At that funeral, he knew that he was the express reason why the entire event was taking place, but he felt such a disconnect from the whole situation that he was more apathetic than most. It was the only time that he could remember being in a church before Jonathan's christening nearly eight years earlier, and he found that it shaped his entire view of churchgoing and Christianity in general. He didn't feel much beyond sheer boredom at the horribly drawn-out Catholic service, and when he had to sit through the same thing for Adalia and Matthew's christening, he thought he was going to lose his mind; if it hadn't been for Jonathan's learning to speak at the same time and the constant running out to deal with him, he probably would have just fallen asleep.

That morning, however, he was again in the front pew, but now he felt more at fault than he did at his parents' funeral. He and Lisa had woken up early that morning, dressed in the dark and left without a word to anyone, including Joe, who had arrived the night before and remained awake all night reading a book and caring for his nightmaring grandchildren as their parents slept in the dreamless arms of zolpidem. A taxi was already waiting for them at the door, arranged the night before by the hospital, and they were taken directly to the entrance of the hospital closest to the morgue. As Jackson signed papers, constantly pushing his slipping glasses up on his nose, Lisa was led into the morgue by a nurse who opened the storage for Lisa to place Adalia's bunny atop her. He watched his wife through the steel-reinforced glass as she whispered sweet nothings to their daughter, untangling her curls and pushing them out of her babyish face. When the paperwork was finished, the mortician gestured to the nurse and Lisa pressed her fingertips to her lips before pressing them against Adalia's own.

He wasn't sure what they were going to do for the hours following, but he certainly wasn't expecting to be led by his wife to the hospital chapel. He followed her to the front of the sanctuary past nameless others who undoubtedly had loved ones in the hospital and to the front pew where he'd settled and numbed his mind against the religious. Lisa was there beside him, looking up at the cross on the wall, but he was focused on the velvet of the kneeler more than anything else before her hand slipped from his and he looked over to see her stand and walk to the front. As she knelt down, he sat up straighter and watched her with traces of confusion on his face. He knew from family discussions and stories that his wife had been raised Catholic, but her family was an Easter-and-Christmas type. They went through the motions by christening the kids, but he was almost certain that Lisa had never been to Confession and he knew for a fact that she didn't own a rosary. If anything, they strove to be the nondenominational family by being decidedly agnostic, so when he saw her genuflect and cross herself in front of the congregation, it took him by complete surprise. At first, there was embarrassment in his glance, but as he looked around, he could see the sympathy in the gazes of the people looking at his wife's back and it heartened him, even if he didn't understand the cosmic reasoning.

He didn't move for the half-hour during which she knelt there, her hands clasped over her chest as her lips moved soundlessly, but by the time she made her way back to his side, he had found a new appreciation for simply the calm that the place offered in comparison to the world outside of the doors in the back. Lisa slipped her arms around one of his own, and as she pressed the side of her face against his shoulder, he felt a weight lift off of his entire being.

Adalia was cremated on a Sunday afternoon. It was already dark when her parents returned to the hotel suite they were living in, both dressed in black with Lisa clutching a small pewter box and Jackson's hand gripping her elbow. Once they made it into the room, Lisa branched away from her husband and disappeared into their bedroom with the box. Jackson watched after her for a moment before putting his hands in his pockets and walking over to his father-in-law, who had his glasses taken off and set on the table in front of him. Jackson followed his lead, discarding his glasses on the coffee table as he sat down on the couch across from Joe, pinching the bridge of his nose. In the other bedroom, the boys were playing loudly, their laughing belying the fact that they were both still young children without a firm handle on the events of the days before. Hediyeh was on the floor looking absolutely drained, her head resting on the dog's stomach as she changed the channels on the muted television.

'How is she handling it?' asked Joe in a half-voice.

'Surprisingly well,' answered Jackson, dropping his hand to cover his mouth as he looked at his father-in-law. 'Regardless, neither of us knows quite how to deal with this.'

'Where do you plan to go from now?' he asked, raising his eyebrows, and Jackson knew exactly to what he was hinting and had a feeling that Lisa had spoken to her father already about their determinations.

'Joe, we're going to need to have you keep the kids for a while,' Jackson said with a little discomfort behind his words, and in his peripheral vision, he could see Hediyeh sit up and turn to look at them. 'I had wanted to stay on the defence, but it's obvious that an offensive is going to be required in this instance.'

Joe leaned forward. 'What about Lisa?'

Jackson shifted in his seat. 'She's coming with me.'

'Jackson-'

'It was her decision, not mine,' he said quickly, appearing vaguely flustered. 'I didn't want her to come with me, but I'm not going to try to stop her.'

'But the kids...' said Joe, his voice trailing off as his daughter walked out of the bedroom blowing her nose.

Lisa discarded the tissue with a sigh before walking towards the living area. She bent down to kiss Hediyeh on the forehead and the girl looked at her with tear-filled eyes as Lisa held the sides of her face, smiling sadly at her. After running her fingers through Hediyeh's long, wavy hair for a minute, Lisa stood and walked over to the couch upon which her father was sitting and curled up beside him.

'Hi Daddy,' she said, kissing him on the cheek. 'How were the kids?'

'The boys slept most of the time that you were gone,' he replied, squeezing his daughter tightly in both arms. 'Hediyeh and I watched the History Channel for almost the entire day.'

'Don't change the subject,' begged Hediyeh with a yawn, crawling over to sit on the floor next to the coffee table. 'What's this about staying with Pedar for awhile?'

Lisa looked at Jackson for a moment before focusing on Hediyeh, her eyebrows pinched together as she spoke with a soft, strained voice. 'Hedi, your father and I have some business to take care of.'

'You don't have to use metaphors with me,' replied Hediyeh in the same tone, resting her chin on the table as she looked blankly at the reflection on the wood. 'I know what you're doing.'

Lisa nuzzled against her father more. 'I promise that Pedar will take good care of you.'

'You said Baba would take good care of us too,' she said spitefully, raising her eyebrows as silent tears fell down her cheeks.

Lisa tensed and sat up straight, shaking her head slowly as tears formed in her eyes. Jackson watched Hediyeh, stunned, as the girl made circles with her left index finger on the wood, biting her lip before looking up to see that her mother had stood up and was looking down at her angrily.

'Go to your room,' Lisa said very carefully, but her voice was strained to the point that her throat hurt when she spoke. 'Right now.'

Hediyeh stared at her before she let her mouth hang open for a long moment. She furrowed her brow and grew stern despite the tears still running down her face as she spoke with vehemency. 'No.'

For a moment, it felt as though all of the air had been sucked from the room, and everything was in stasis. The boys had even quieted down in the next room. The images on the screen behind Hediyeh flickered silently as Lisa took a sharp breath and suddenly reached down to yank up Hediyeh by the arm and slap her harshly across the face. Jackson and Joe jumped at the action, both as utterly stunned as Hediyeh seemed to be. Lisa moved her hand to her side with a purposeful motion, gripping her hand into a fist as she still held Hediyeh's arm aloft. She bent forward, getting closer to Hediyeh's face before her features seemed to crush under the stress of the moment, tears pouring down her reddened face.

'Don't you _ever_ talk about your father that way!' Lisa screamed roughly, and Hediyeh seemed to curl into herself. 'You have _no_ idea what this is like! Both of us already blame ourselves for what happened, don't you _realise_ that? Adalia asked me to stay with her, but instead I told her not to worry, that everything was going to be all right, and I left her. I think of that _every moment_, Hediyeh. _Every_ moment!'

She reached up to wipe at her nose with the inside of her wrist before continuing.

'Your father and I try so hard to do what is best for you kids,' she said, her tone softer, and because of the seriousness behind her words, scarier. 'Do you honestly think we'd purposefully take you somewhere that we knew would be dangerous? Do you think your father _planned_ for that to happen to Adalia? Do you?'

'No,' Hediyeh replied in a little puff, not being able to bring herself to make eye contact with her mother.

'Apologise to your father,' Lisa said, dropping Hediyeh's arm as she stepped back, her arms crossed almost protectively over her chest.

Hediyeh turned numbly and looked at Jackson, who wasn't accomplishing a very impressive poker face to cover his surprise at the situation. Instantly, Hediyeh's face crumpled and she began taking breathy sobs, stumbling over to Jackson with her arms extended. 'Baba, I'm sorry! I'm sorry I made you upset!'

Jackson wasn't sure what to do, so he just leaned forward and hugged her. 'It's all right, I... I accept your apology.'

'Now go to your room,' said Lisa, uncrossing her arms to point at the door where Jonathan and Matthew were standing, looking like they'd just seen an epic battle. 'We'll talk more about this in the morning.'

Late that night, Jackson woke up to the sound of his wife throwing up. He looked with blurry vision at the bright light before feeling around for his glasses and turning on the lamp, stumbling to the bathroom as he tried to mentally count back to their last sexual encounter, considering their track record for spur-of-the-moment flings wasn't exactly stellar-there would probably be nothing worse than Lisa going through another pregnancy at that point in time. As he looked over to the toilet, however, he saw her with her hand against her forehead and tipped his head, yawning.

'Migraine?'

She nodded slowly. 'I don't have any Imitrex.'

There was silence between the two as Jackson yawned again. 'I'll go to the pharmacy at the hospital and get some.'

'No,' she muttered. 'Don't leave me.'

He sighed, leaning against the counter as he pushed up his glasses and looked down at his wife. Shaking his head, he took a couple of steps forward and bent over to help her to her feet. Once she stood, she leaned heavily against him as he led her to the bed, where she sat down. He crotched down and she fell forward, pressing her feverish forehead to his cool one as he looked at her with icy eyes.

'You'll stay here,' he said simply and quietly, and she tensed her brow. 'Lie down; I'll be back in less than twenty minutes.'

'Jackson, please...' she murmured, but he was already walking over to the chair in the room where he'd thrown his suit pants earlier.

Lisa watched him as he took his wallet from the back pocket before taking a few large strides to the bathroom and turning off the light. In the darkness, she could hear him pull his shoes from the closet and rustle through the hanging clothes to find an ancient university hoodie of his. Silence fell over the room, but she jumped when his lips suddenly brushed by her ear.

'I mean it,' he whispered. 'Lie down. You've had a horrible week and need the rest. I'll be back soon.'

Before she could argue, he'd already left the room


	11. Chapter 11

Iciness crept through his stomach as Jackson got closer to the hospital in the cab, so he went as quickly as humanly possible through the process of getting Lisa the migraine medication. The pharmacist seemed understanding, quickly processing Lisa's medical information through the standard global health network and handing Jackson the needed orange bottle without trying to make any small talk. Only about seven minutes after he arrived, Jackson was striding out of the sterile building, his nerves more on edge than they'd been even during his years as a manager. He walked down to a bus stop about two blocks from the hospital and collapsed on the bench, digging through his pocket for a cigarette and putting it between his lips with a cathartic sigh before realising that he didn't have a light.

'Dammit...' he grumbled, leaning back against the plexiglass walls before a clicking brought him back to attention and he jumped up, his eyes wide as he looked at the woman who had so sleekly appeared beside him.

'I guess that means no?' she purred, giving him a light shrug before lighting the cigarette held between her crimson lips.

'What the fuck do you want?' asked Jackson, angrily taking the cig from his own mouth and casting it aside as he glared at the woman.

'Well, I did want to give you a light,' replied Lyna, stretching out a leg seductively before crossing it over the other. 'The least I can do, yes?'

Jackson was speechless, choosing instead to gape at her, his face appearing vaguely crushed and crestfallen. 'You were involved, weren't you?'

Lyna narrowed her eyes, tapping ash from the end of her cigarette before speaking with more vehemency than he'd seen her muster in years. 'I would _never_ kill a child.'

He swallowed harshly past the huge lump that had formed in his throat, but the swallowing didn't help strengthen his voice any when he spoke. 'Why are you here?'

'I was waiting for you in La Junta,' she said with something distantly related to sympathy. 'We were given instructions to bring you all safely to Liechtenstein.'

'We?'

Lyna gestured past him to a car sitting in a car park across the street. 'Sharena and Danielle. Shall we visit?'

Despite offering her statement as a question, she didn't leave much room for argument as she stood and slipped her arm through his, dragging him flannel pyjama bottoms and all across the street. She shoved him in the car and he landed partially on top of Sharena, who sat him up before straightening his hair and handing him his glasses, which had fallen off of his face and down atop her cleavage. He looked with exhaustion at the front seat as Lyna sat down next to a young woman with strawberry-blonde hair and brown eyes who offered her hand to him from over the console.

'Danielle Bayley,' she said in a chipper Australian accent, and he took her hand bluntly with the odd realisation that he'd done this same thing to many people over the years.

'Jackson Rippner,' he said, unsure.

'Pleasure,' Danielle replied before raising her eyebrows sympathetically. 'I'm sorry for your loss.'

Jackson just stared at her, the prior realisation adding a sheen of the surreal to the entire situation. 'I'm sorry?'

Danielle gave Sharena a confused glance and the older woman reached over to lay her hand on Jackson's arm. 'She was talking about your little girl, honey.'

He turned to look at her with an expression that only she seemed to be able to read, and she reached up to place a hand on his cheek, patting at the stubbly skin warmly before pulling him into a tight hug. Typically, Jackson was averse to any sort of frivolous contact outside of the rare public displays of affection shared with his wife or the normal fatherly things he did with the children, but with Sharena, he just let himself melt. In the front seat, Lyna nodded, and Danielle started the car; it wasn't until they started moving that Jackson fought against Sharena's hold.

'Where are you taking me?' he demanded, giving an accusative glare at the back of Lyna's head before looking hopefully at Sharena for an acceptable answer.

'Don't worry, baby.'

'My wife is waiting for this medicine,' Jackson said quickly, fishing the orange bottle out of his coat and shaking it. 'She'll notice if I'm gone for too long.'

'Which is why we intend to make this quick,' said Danielle, turning onto the main street.

'I am sure that you are aware of the incident with Poulain and Pedram.'

'Pedram?' he asked. 'I didn't hear anything about Pedram.'

Lyna tipped her head and he could see her purse her lips with a slight contempt. 'You obviously have not been keeping as sharp as I expected you to be.'

'Vasylyna,' growled Sharena protectively. 'The World Society has been bisected. South America, North Africa, the Middle East and Europe staged a coup and eradicated the other heads. Currently, the only living Continental Delegate is Saeng Chaiyasan, but she's in critical condition. Acting in her place is her second, Chiaki Fujihara, and the North American Delegation is being handled by Watson's second, Austin Dalby.'

'Who is engaged to Poulain's niece!' announced Danielle gleefully, which earned her a dark look from Lyna.

'The seconds don't have access to their Delegations,' Sharena continued. 'The seconds of the four members of the New World Society have already been sent out to cover the orphan delegations.'

'Would I know any of these seconds?' he asked, his head finally wrapped around the there and now.

'Most likely not,' replied Lyna. 'They are all younger than you are; they were in training when you were on your last assignment. The oldest of them just turned twenty-eight.'

'I could have found this out on my own. Why did you come to me?'

'Well, you're the heir apparent,' replied Danielle, looking at him in the rear-view mirror. 'Anaïs told us that you're the executor of Poulain's will, and if you're wanting to seek revenge for your daughter, then we'll be here to help you.'

Jackson raised an eyebrow; for all the intelligence Melissa had, her sister sure seemed to be lacking. 'Then why is Sharena here? She's retired.'

'I'll be taking the kids, honey,' she said with a smile meant to erase the nagging fear of his children and Joe being harmed. 'We'll all go to Miami to get far away from the Continental Headquarters, and once Dalby and Couturier send us the information about contacts, you and baby-girl can head out.'

He nodded slowly, his eyes narrowed. 'How do I know you're not working under Pedram?'

Lyna turned to glare at him and Danielle's face grew angry in the rear-view mirror as Sharena reached over towards him. At first, he thought she was going to hit him, so he shrunk away from her only to realise that she was holding an envelope of airline tickets. Light filled the car despite the heavily tinted windows and Jackson noticed that Danielle had pulled the car under the portico of the hotel, the gears popping as she put the car into park. Jackson looked from the envelope to Sharena, but after she gave him an almost punishing look, he rolled his eyes and took it from her, opening it to see the tickets inside. He fingered through them, stopping half-way as his eyebrows pulled together and he bit his lip.

'You left Adalia's ticket in here,' he said, and Lyna nearly jumped when he took a short intake of breath and covered half of his face with his other hand, tapping the envelope down on his leg as he started crying.

Sharena cast a dark look towards Lyna, but the Ukrainian just continued looking like a deer in the headlights as tears rolled down Jackson's face and splattered on the envelope. Slipping her hand under his, Sharena took the envelope from him and pulled out the ticket, folding it and putting it in her pocket before slipping the other tickets into his suit jacket behind the bottle of pills for Lisa. She reached up and pat him on the side of the face.

'The flight leaves at nine tomorrow morning,' she said as Jackson closed his eyes and composed himself. 'We'll be here at seven.'

Jackson nodded before grabbing the handle and pulling it towards him. There was a momentary pause on his part before he pushed open the door and got out, not looking at the car as he walked to the hotel and disappeared through the automatic doors. Once he was gone, Danielle put the car into drive, refusing to look over at Lyna, whose head was still turned to look out the window. When they pulled out of the parking lot and onto the street again, Lyna hazarded a look back at Sharena.

'I just thought it would be-'

'You,' said Sharena, crossing her arms as she shook her head disapprovingly. 'You're gonna have to answer to Jesus.


	12. Chapter 12

When the three pulled up the next morning in a van, the entire family was waiting in front for them sullenly. The children didn't seem to understand why they were moving out of the hotel so quickly and as far as any of them could tell, Lisa and Jackson hadn't ended up getting any sleep the night before. A pitiful-looking Matthew was curled up against his father's hip with his head resting on Jackson's shoulder as Jackson said something to him, pulling on the leash held in his other hand a bit as he did so. Hediyeh had her arms around her mother as they sat next to each other on one of the benches at the entrance and Joe sat on the other side of his daughter with Jonathan in his lap. As the van stopped, Danielle and Lyna jumped out immediately to gather the few items the family had with them with Sharena watching them closely before she walked over to Jackson.

'And who is this?' she asked, and the boy looked at her with bloodshot green eyes, not taking his head from his father's shoulder.

'Matthew,' Jackson replied, reaching up to brush some dark brown hair out of the boy's face; the tug pulled Scupper's attention from the bustling women back to his master, and in a moment, he was leaned against Jackson's leg. 'He didn't end up having a very good night. Matt, this is Sharena. She's going to be your nanny when Mommy and I are away.'

'You named him after Poulain?' asked Danielle, who had moved within earshot.

Jackson's eyes flickered nervously towards Lisa, but she seemed more preoccupied with getting everyone into the van and glaring at Lyna than listening to their small talk. 'Yes, he's named after Poulain.'

Matthew buried his face back into his father's neck, but in a moment, he was being handed off to Sharena. He tried to keep a firm grasp of his father, but Jackson suddenly didn't seem at all interested in coddling the boy. As Jackson walked away towards his mother, he looked longingly after him until Sharena began to speak.

'So, are you as smart as your Daddy?'

'Daddy's smart?' Matthew asked, his eyes wide. 'That's not what Mommy and Grandpa say.'

Sharena laughed. 'I like you.'

Four hours later, their flight still hadn't left from Colorado Springs. Hediyeh had finally arrived at the annoying point of refusing to speak anything but Arabic directly to Jackson, and when she did, it was loud and complaining. After a half-hour of it, Lyna finally snapped and started screaming back at her, the two of them causing a scene that the rest of the family just chose to ignore mostly because they couldn't understand what the two were yelling to each other. Danielle kept trying to reason with them, but Jackson found her poor conjugation of verbs more grating than the fight itself and soon excused himself from everyone, moving from their gate and into the hallway. He passed one magazine stand but deemed it too close to the action (he could still hear the fight) and decided on a store far in the distance.

Inside the store, there was jazz playing and Jackson found himself thinking about Ian and how much he wished that his wife had run over Lyna rather than his easy-going and intelligent former assassin. He was caught up in his musings and reading a magazine when a hand landed on his shoulder and he looked up, tensing rather than turning around.

'I didn't want to be part of it, Jackson,' said a smooth voice in impeccable French. 'You have to believe me.'

He narrowed his eyes, taking into consideration how quickly he could break someone's neck once he turned to face them, but instead just spoke tersely. 'At least you had the decency to leave the bottle of ether.'

In the reflection off of the magazine rack, he could see her lower her head. 'We didn't have a choice-'

He turned around sharply, taking a step forward to get dangerously close to her before whispering harshly. 'If you're looking for forgiveness, you're not going to get it. I'd break your damn neck right now if we weren't in a public place.'

Hélène swallowed harshly, closing her eyes tightly as she tipped her head away from him. He smirked, reaching up to grab her chin tightly enough that she whimpered in pain. Twisting her head upward, he leaned in even more so that their noses were almost touching.

'Just you wait,' he murmured deeply. 'You're not my number one priority right now, but once the big hitters are taken care of, you and whoever worked with you-'

'Nils and Solveig,' she said through her pinched jaw. 'Solveig planned the entire thing and Nils did the... Nils did it. I was brought in without Pedram knowing.'

Jackson's jaw tensed and the muscles in his cheek twitched angrily as he squeezed even tighter on her jaw-line. 'Why did you come here?'

'I know the operatives who retain allegiance to Poulain,' she said, tears inadvertently running down her face. 'Pedram plans to eradicate them after you're taken care of.'

His eyes flittered up for a moment to assure they weren't attracting any negative attention before he spoke with a dark tone. 'Why is Pedram so interested in destroying us? I retired to get away from this and before she started her war against us, I had absolutely no intention of ever becoming even remotely involved in matters of the World Society ever again.'

'But that doesn't change the fact that you're the legal heir apparent,' she said, and he released her jaw in disgust to gross his arms and glare at her. 'You know as well as I that the heir presumptive cannot take over when the heir apparent is still alive, and that all of the heir apparent's children take precedence over the heir presumptive.'

Jackson shook his head, shoving his hands into his pockets as he looked coldly at the Frenchwoman. 'Why didn't Poulain change the papers? Until Melissa told me, I had no idea that I was still considered the heir apparent. I left the society almost eight years ago; wasn't that enough time to change the succession?'

'He refused,' Hélène replied. 'The board pushed him to name Agatha the new heir apparent, but he wouldn't do it. He doesn't trust her enough to keep his rules intact.'

'His rules,' Jackson repeated with an ironic laugh. 'The entire organisation is outdated.'

'Then you wouldn't-?'

'If I took power, I would eradicate the entire thing,' he said, giving her a harsh look. 'There's no use anymore, and I said that to Poulain years ago.'

Hélène seemed taken aback, but she didn't show immense amounts of shock as she spoke quietly. 'Do you want to know who they are?'

'Who?'

'The operatives.'

He looked at her with confusion. 'You're going to be the second person I've asked this to in the last twelve hours, but how do I know you're not working for Pedram?'

'I am working for Pedram,' she replied simply, tipping her head. 'But under duress.'

He scratched idly at his eyebrow, looking her over with narrowed blue eyes. 'Do you have them written, or...?'

'I don't have them.'

Stunned silence followed before Jackson rolled his eyes and began walking away from her, but she grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him back, staring at him.

'You have to go to New York City.'

'Why?' he asked, leaning forward to emphasise his question.

'There's a girl there,' she replied, dropping his wrist to pull out a pen and paper, writing something quickly. 'She's Irish... Osikowicz's second. Before she goes out to the continental office in Los Angeles, she's scouting the City for a new location that's more easily accessible from Geneva. She'll be there for another four days.'

She handed him the piece of paper and he looked at it. 'Síle?'

'It's pronounced like "Sheila,"' said Hélène. 'Síle ó Néill.'

He nodded, folding the paper and putting it into his suit pocket. 'And she'll have the information I need?'

'Yes,' Hélène said with a great sigh. 'She'll know exactly who is still on Poulain's side and where to find all of the new heads.'

Convinced, Jackson began to walk away, but after he'd taken a few steps, he turned back and looked questioningly at Hélène. 'Where are Solveig and Nils?'

Hélène tipped her head forward, her eyes growing dark as she set her jaw. 'I didn't find that they appreciated your loss as much as I felt they should have.'

Jackson gave her a startled look before turning carefully and walking out of the store, feeling her gaze on him even as he walked back towards the group. The same surreal quality that effected him the night before was hovering near him once again as he considered Hélène's reaction to the Jenssons. Ten or eleven years earlier, there would have been absolutely nothing audacious about an operative killing her partners; after all, Poulain's own birth son had been killed in the same fashion. It was a fast-moving world and although people hoped that their partners wouldn't end up killing them, it was always a standing risk. Lyna had tried to kill him before and she received little more than a slap on the wrist. Now, however, years hence, he'd had his entire life laid out completely differently and the culture of the World Society seemed so distant and foreign.

Lisa must have noticed the bothering thoughts crossing her husband's mind, because as he walked up, she reached out and grabbed him in the same way Hélène had, but registering in her face was worry. 'Jack, is something wrong?'

He had jumped a little when she grabbed him, but he quickly shook it off and slipped on the slightly icy façade that he was trying to hard to find again. 'No, I just ran into someone I know.'

Lyna stopped her glaring at Hediyeh to quickly snap around and look at him. 'Who was it? Who is here?'

He set his jaw once more. 'Hélène Lacroix.'

The woman had jumped to her feet before Jackson could do so much as blink. 'Where is she? I will kill her!'

Lisa blinked, looking past Jackson with a raised eyebrow at Lyna. 'Who-?'

'Lyna, don't-'

'The woman who helped those people kill your daughter!' Lyna said slightly too loudly and people around them began to look uncomfortably at the group.

Jackson grumbled softly, squeezing his eyes shut before turning back to look at his wife, who rather than giving him the angry look he was expecting was looking at him with pity and morbid curiosity despite the tears still gathering in the edges of her eyes. 'What did she tell you?'

He sat down next to his wife, casting warning glances at the people who were still looking at them before pulling the paper out of his pocket and holding it for her to see. 'We're supposed to go to this woman in New York City. She'll give us all the information we need to take care of everything.


	13. Chapter 13

As they walked to the baggage claim, he castigated her for crying, but she just ignored him as she spotted their bags and walked away, waiting on the curb as he caught up to her and hailed a taxi. They didn't speak from LaGuardia until they arrived at The Alex in Murray Hill, where Lisa sat on a cube-shaped chair in front of a fireplace as she watched her husband through a blue panel in the glass of the lobby. After a few minutes of French conversation with the desk attendant (Sharena had recommended that they use Jackson's Swiss identity rather than his birth name), he gestured to her and she walked over, her rolling bag rumbling on the marble as she walked past a wall of orchids and over to her husband. She expected to go to the lift, but instead, he turned to the attendant and pressed his hand to Lisa's lower back.

'C'est ma femme, Isolde,' he said, pressing Lisa against him.

'Je suis enchantée,' Lisa said dryly to the man, giving Jackson a warning look.

Jackson clicked his tongue. 'Be polite, _Isolde_. Monsieur Sigonneau will be arranging our meeting.'

'It's all right, Monsieur Poulain,' the man replied in heavily-accented English. 'I understand that it has been a difficult couple of weeks for your family. Miss ó Néill is on business right now, but she will most likely be available for your meeting by mid-day tomorrow.'

'You have my number,' Jackson said, leaning forward on the check-in desk. 'As soon as she's available, I want to be notified. I would like to finish our business here and move on as quickly as possible.'

'I understand completely, monsieur,' Sigonneau replied, nodding smoothly. 'Please enjoy your stay.'

Jackson tapped his fingers on the cool counter before putting his hand over the envelope containing their keys and turning quickly to walk to the elevator. Lisa followed him and was about to ask him a question when the door opened and a lift attendant looked at them expectantly as they stepped in.

'Which floor, please?'

'Twenty-two,' Jackson replied, leaning back against the wall of the elevator next to Lisa.

They were silent until Jackson opened the door to their room and Lisa walked in, taking in the design of the place.

'It's fabulous,' she said, dropping her bags in the living room. 'I don't understand... why do we need a suite if we're just going to be here overnight?'

'We're not here just overnight,' Jackson replied, closing the door and walking across the room to set his laptop case on the glass dining table. 'I need time to plan.'

As he began unpacking his carry-on bag, she raised an eyebrow and put her hands on her hips. 'How long?'

'A week to ten days,' he said simply. 'And don't put anything on this table. I'm going to need it.'

It was odd watching him as he set out all of his supplies, his movements very exact and nearly obsessive. She walked over to the living area, sitting on a leather chaise and letting out a little sigh as she looked through the sheer curtains at the New York skyline-she knew from living with Jackson for nearly eight years that when he was unpacking anything, it was best to just leave him alone. He always unpacked everything, putting it all exactly where he wanted it to go. The kids loved it because they never had to put away their clothes on vacations, but to Lisa it always seemed oddly controlling. As he passed behind her, he ran his fingers absentmindedly through her long hair before disappearing into the bedroom with their rolling bag. She sighed and got up to follow him, leaning on the divider wall between the living and bedroom areas.

'What do I need to do when you're working?'

Jackson was standing in front of the sliding door of the closet with one of her dresses in his hands as he fiddled with a hanger. 'What do you mean?'

'Well...' she said softly, tapping her head back against the wall. 'I don't assume you want to be bothered.'

'You're not going out of my sight alone, if that's what you're getting at,' he said, looking at her moderately coldly.

She pressed her lips together. 'You actually think I'd want to go waltzing around New York Ci-'

'I assumed that you would help me with the logistics,' Jackson interrupted, looking at her oddly as she perked up. 'Don't get too excited-when I worked for the World Society, I had an assistant to make travel arrangements and phone calls. You're just taking the place of Greg.'

She watched him unpack the rest of the clothing and put the bag away carefully before walking into the bathroom. She followed. 'So, do all of the managers in the World Society have assistants?'

'Yes,' he said, lining up their toiletries around the sink.

'What about the, uh...'

'No, the assassins don't have assistants, technically,' Jackson said, turning on the sink to wash some shampoo from his hands. 'They can't do anything without a manager, and the manager's assistant takes care of all airline reservations and lodging.'

'What's the hierarchy in the organisation?' she asked, leaning back to let him walk past her and out to the bed, where he threw himself onto the cushy duvet.

'Now, or then?'

Slowly, she went over to the bed, took off her shoes, and crawled in next to him on top of the sheets. 'Then.'

'Then...' he said musingly as he put his hands under his head and looked up at the ceiling. 'There's the head of the society, Matthias Poulain, and he oversees the operations of the organisation as a whole. He has a board under him, however, to keep him abreast of situations around the world, and the members of that board are the Continental Delegates.

'There are...' he paused to collect his thoughts. 'Eight continental delegates, one each from Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, North America, South Africa, and South America. Under them are the Seconds, which take their places if something happens to them, much like the president-vice president system.'

'The Delegates are elected?'

'Oh, hell no,' he said in a slightly hissing tone, shaking his head. 'It's based purely on job performance and sometimes heredity. Poulain and the Board have to approve every member.'

Lisa propped herself up on an elbow. 'Why were you chosen to be the next head of the organisation?'

'Because I was the best,' he said a bit haughtily. 'And because Poulain's son was murdered by his assassin.'

'Is Poulain a manager?'

'He was,' Jackson replied. 'All of the members of the Board were once managers. It's the most revered position within the society.'

'Who else is in the society besides the Head, the Board, the managers, the assassins, and their assistants?'

'There's a little bit of everything: forgers, psychiatrists, medical doctors, lawyers, disguise specialists, teachers, weapons specialists... scientists,' he said, his voice dropping on the last in the list. 'And a whole host of civilians who work for the World Society that everyone knows and loves.'

'But how do they keep the secret of the World Society safe?' Lisa inquired curiously.

Jackson considered this question for a very long few minutes, his face screwed up in concentration before he gave a very short answer. 'We just... do. No one ever asks. It's hidden in plain sight; no one would expect for a massive humanitarian organisation to be a secret society that participates in coups d'état or assassinations.'

Lisa nodded slowly. 'So really, the World Society functions like a democracy.'

'Definitely _not_,' he replied quickly. 'Despite having a set-up like a democracy, it is very much an autocracy. Poulain dictates how everything is run, and up until this point, no one's really defied his rules.'

'Then what happened?'

'Well, he's in his nineties-'

'Was he sick?'

'No,' said Jackson, reaching over to put his hand over her mouth. 'He was shot one night at his office. Someone managed to get in without his head secretary noticing, which is quite an accomplishment. Twice in the chest, and Anaïs didn't hear it when she was ten feet away from his door. He was taken to the hospital and the Board was called in to make a decision regarding who would take his place. There's a girl who is considered the heir presumptive, but the heir apparent will always take over in a monarchy.'

She licked his hand and he pulled it away, wiping it on the duvet as he scrunched up his nose. 'So did they make the girl the head?'

Jackson almost felt like he was telling a very complicated and rather questionable bedtime story as he continued with the extra information that Lyna had provided for him during the time that they were in Miami. 'No. The board voted on the anti-terrorism by-law, which was something created by Poulain to avoid mass killings by members of the society. Four voted for it, four voted against it; the alpha in the group for it killed all of the Delegates and Seconds who voted for it, but the Asian Delegate and her Second in addition to the Second for North America survived the massacre.'

Lisa considered this for a moment. 'Who is this girl we're meeting?'

'The Second for Europe.'

She gaped. 'But if her superior voted for terrorism, how do you know we're not just walking into a trap?'

'I don't,' he admitted. 'But that's just a risk that one has to take in this business; you have to trust that your co-workers aren't trying to stab you in the back.'

'That's a huge risk,' she replied, raising her eyebrows in concern.

He turned to look at her sternly. 'If you're going to be doubting, then I'd be more than happy to take you back to Miami instead of having you second-guess every single one of my decisions.'

'You're not going to get rid of me that easily, Jackson,' she said unwaveringly as she rolled her eyes dramatically and sat up to slide to the edge of the bed.

There wasn't really full silence in New York City, so when the conversation stopped, the prevalent sounds were cars honking and the rumble of large trucks and buses as they drove their routes. The crisp cotton duvet cover crinkled as Jackson sat up, leaning against the headboard as he looked from his wife's back to his socked feet. Beyond the sheer curtains, snow had started falling to add to the copious amounts that already clogged the sidewalks of the city. Jackson bit the inside of his cheek before looking back at Lisa.

'Change clothes.'

'What?' she asked, turning around to look at him.

'Change into something warmer. We're going to Grand Central.'

'That'll take forever. There's so much traffic here.'

'Which is why we're walking there. It's only about five blocks, and we can get all of the groceries we need for the week,' he said, enunciating everything he said by moving his head around. 'And if you're cold when we get there, there's a restaurant in the dining concourse that serves only soup.'

'You can't just lose a grown man,' hissed Pedram's incredibly angry voice over the shaky connection as the first hintings of daylight teased the edge of the horizon off of Long Island. 'You've obviously not looked hard enough, and I suggest you begin trying a bit harder before we have to take liberties with your dependants.'

Gritting his teeth together, Greg Howland ran his hand over his closed eyes. 'I've tried; he's nowhere in this city and neither is his wife.'

'You worked with him for years, Howland,' grumbled Pedram. 'Where does he stay? What kind of pattern does he follow?'

'His patterns have changed,' Howland replied, exasperated. 'He's not predictable anymore.'

He could hear the heels of her shoes tapping on the marble floor of the in-house office of Matthias Poulain and the crinkling of paper as she hunted for something on her desk.

'I don't understand... why not just go after the kids again? You know where the kids and her parents are,' Greg said with a shrug as he turned his back to the sun and looked at the reflection off of the plate glass doors.

'I think we've all learned from the Hudson incident that we're not to do the same thing twice,' she said, almost as an afterthought, and if Greg had to guess, he'd assume that Melissa was sitting in the room with Pedram and she said it just to get a rise out of her captive. 'Besides, it's no fun if he's not there to see it.'

'It's because he killed Síle, isn't it?' asked Greg before yawning.

'We have no proof of that, only assumptions,' Pedram replied, but she didn't seem very convinced. 'There was a body, yes, but with the head missing, it's very difficult to make determinations.'

'It fits his M.O.,' he said, walking back inside. 'No gun, but a good job with knives and blunt objects.'

'I didn't realise he was one to throw bodies off of rooftops.'

'He's showy,' Greg replied quickly, rolling the door shut. 'Regional headquarters told me that a message was sent to them, but they didn't get into much detail about it. Have you heard?'

'They overnighted it to the office,' Pedram said, and after a bit more shuffling, she cleared her throat. 'It says, "Eight little whores, with no hope of Heaven; Gladstone may save one, then there'll be seven."'

'What is-'

'It's apparently something from an old poem about Jack the Ripper,' she said dryly.

'Oh,' Greg said lamely.

'It's not his handwriting though-it's his wife's,' she replied, turning the paper over.

There was silence as Greg sat down on a chair in his living room, leaning forward to put his elbows on his knees. 'You weren't so concerned after we found Síle's body... why are you wanting to find him so quickly now?'

She let out an aggravated sigh. 'We received a telegram this morning. It was wired from New York City, but there was no information about when the original request was made for it to be sent, though it could have been up to three days ago.'

'What did it say?' he asked, his voice suddenly concerned.

'"I was not codding dear old Boss when I gave you the tip-"'

'You'll hear about Saucy Jack's work tomorrow,' he interrupted, speaking in a half-voice. 'Are all of the offices on alert?'

'Yes,' she said strongly. 'The new Continental Delegates are not allowed to be out after dark, nor are they to be walking around without a contingency of guards. We will not allow him to disrupt the new order of things.'

'Well, he's not here. I'd recommend putting other areas on alert rather than having me waste my time searching for him here,' Greg said, spinning the globe on his coffee table with his socked foot. 'They're not going to go hide out somewhere arbitrary; they're going to be in one of the other seven cities.'

'Which would he go to first?'

Greg shook his head. 'I take care of the logistics of scheduling and travel, but I'm not a manager. I have no idea how his mind works, how he'd respond to this problem.'

'Anthypophora, Greg,' she replied, obviously aggravated. 'He won't go to South America first because it would take him too long to get to another location, and he knows that by the time he made it to the next, we'd have already put everyone on high alert.'

'I really think you're underestimating the way the man thinks.'

'He's severely out of practise and has no assassin,' she said haughtily. 'If anything, he's going to screw up during an attempt and he'll be killed by guards or arrested by the local police.'

Greg stopped his toe and rested the foot on top of the North Pole, leaning back in his chair with slight annoyance. 'All right then. Don't let the hubris effect your judgement too much. I believe he'll view your alerts as a new challenge and find a way around them. Whatever you think he won't do, he more than likely will.


	14. Chapter 14

Lisa fell asleep sitting up in bed reading some World Society dossiers that Jackson had printed up for her, and when she woke up the next morning, she found that he'd neatly stacked the documents on the night-stand beside her with a note on top written in his measured handwriting. She groggily wiped the sleep out of her eyes and grabbed it, reading quickly that he'd left almost thirty minutes earlier to meet Síle, whom he would be bringing back to the room for their meeting. With a grumble, she slipped out of bed, rubbing her eyes as she walked to the closet only to find that Jackson had already laid out a cashmere Kiton Napoli suit for her.

Almost an hour passed before Lisa heard voices in the hallway, one obviously her husband's, and the other deep but feminine. After checking her make-up in the reflection, Lisa straightened the dress, put on the blazer and buttoned it, and then slipped on her high heels. As she walked falsely confidently out into the living area, the door swung open and a Brioni-clad Jackson looked in at her with a nod.

'She's ready,' he said, turning his head to the unseen woman in the hallway. 'Please, come in.'

From all of the information Jackson had provided about the society, Lisa expected a woman around her age with a conservative suit and harshly styled hair. She'd only seen Jackson and Lyna in action, and both dressed to the teeth. When Síle came around the corner, however, Lisa couldn't help but tip her head in confusion: the other woman couldn't be much older than nineteen or twenty and wore the oddest amalgamation of brightly coloured clothing that Lisa had ever witnessed. Her face was riddled with metal piercings and she wore thick makeup, especially around her brown eyes. She stepped farther into the room and Jackson closed the door, raising his eyebrows in understanding to his wife as he rolled his eyes behind Síle's back.

'Pleasure to meet you, Mrs Rippner,' she said in a very heavy Irish accent, striding over to Lisa. 'I'm Síle ó Neíll.'

'Yes, a pleasure to meet you too,' Lisa said, her eyes drawn to Síle's lip ring, which she was spinning around by sucking on. 'Please... call me... Lisa?'

Jackson bit his lip, but Lisa couldn't tell if it was to stifle a laugh or to express to her that she was going about the whole thing wrong.

'Playing with me ring again,' Síle said, reaching up to cover her lip with a netting-covered hand. 'Your husband was giving me murderous looks all the way from me flat for doing the same.'

Lisa laughed uncomfortably then watched as Síle walked over to the sitting area and flopped down in a chair, slumping over unprofessionally. As Jackson gathered documents from the table, Lisa went over and sat on the couch closest to Síle's chair, crossing her legs as she cleared her throat.

'So, are you a manager like my husband?' Lisa asked, trying to establish something vaguely resembling small talk.

'Nah, I'm a Bident,' she said with a little nod.

'A...?'

'Bident,' Síle repeated, obviously believing that Lisa just hadn't heard the word.

'It means she manages _and_ assassinates,' Jackson said, coming over to settle next to Lisa; she gave him a look as though he'd held back vitally important information from her. 'It's a new term-the position didn't exist when I was in the society... there was a very distinct line between managers and assassins.'

'It's all about economics,' Síle replied, her tone suddenly very businesslike. 'By combining the two positions, it allows us to charge less for jobs so that we receive more business.'

'Assassinations aren't supposed to be cheap,' Jackson spat, anger frighteningly apparent on his face. 'They're supposed to be extremely expensive so that only a few can afford the luxury of having someone killed.'

Síle opened her mouth to shout back a response, but Lisa was able to speak first. 'Listen, this has no bearing on what we're here to discuss. Let's just get down to business.'

Both Síle and Jackson turned quickly and glared at her, but after just a moment, the tension dissipated and Síle opened the flap of the messenger bag laid next to her on the chair. From inside, she pulled a silver, metal folder that Lisa recognised from years earlier when she and Jackson had arrived in Albany. After glancing down at it with brown eyes, she flung it onto the glass table and it screeched to a halt at Jackson's knees.

'Watson, Crome, and Machogu are dead, as are Olivia Smythe and Sbongile Mosili, the Seconds for Australia and South Africa. Chaiyasan is badly injured, but has disappeared with Poulain and the Seconds for Asia and North America, among others,' she said, settling back into the chair again with her legs spread sloppily apart. 'I was given North America during the establishment of the New World Society.'

'They've already established a new society?' asked Jackson, glancing over at her. 'I was told the Seconds were given the orphaned continents, but not that it was a settled affair.'

'Oh, it's settled,' she replied with a vaguely morbid laugh. 'Pedram made sure to move quickly so that there would be absolutely no question regarding who was in charge.'

Lisa reached over and took the file from her husband, looking over the information about the three new girls she hadn't heard of before. Little passport photographs of each were stapled to the front pages of their dossiers, and as Lisa looked at their smiling faces, she began to wonder if she'd be able to accomplish the task her husband was setting out for them.

'The text message, by the way,' Síle said, and Jackson leaned forward to look at her. 'Cute.'

'How did you get that message?' Jackson snapped, and then his eyes widened. 'Pedram didn't-'

'No, Bayley's still alive,' said Síle with a simple shrug. 'For now, anyway. Pedram needs her so that Agatha doesn't go squealing to the authorities.'

'Before we go any farther, I have to know,' Jackson started, emphasising each word with an extended hand. 'Did Pedram shoot Poulain?'

Síle opened her mouth a little then leaned forward, her arms crossed over her knees. 'She likes to pretend that she did, but she didn't. We don't know who did it.'

'Where are we going first?' asked Lisa hesitantly, not looking at either of them as she flipped the pages of the dossier.

'Have the Delegation cities changed?'

'Not as long as I've been in the system. Well, except for the New York City move, but you planned that,' replied Síle before rattling off a list that was obviously one of the first things that members memorised, as Jackson mimicked her words. 'Shanghai, Sydney, Brussels, Damascus, Cotonou, Los Angeles, Pretoria, São Paulo.'

'What's included in the dossier?' he asked, trying to look over Lisa's shoulder.

'Information about the Seconds, the Continental Delegation headquarters, and my personal notes about the people so you can get a better idea as to how to go about... taking care of them.'

Lisa assumed that she winked at Jackson, but she didn't look up to check. 'Can we contact you if we need more information?'

'We're not going to need anything else,' Jackson replied quickly. 'I've met half of the people and have been to half of the Delegation headquarters in person.'

'Then it's all cool,' said Síle in a breezy tone, clipping her bag shut again before standing. 'I'll just be on my merry way then.'

Closing the file, Lisa looked up at the girl. 'But...'

'Hey, it's up to you two now, and whoever you can rally to help,' she replied with an exaggerated shrug. 'I'm getting the hell into hiding before Pedram finds out what I've done.'

'We'll walk you to your taxi,' said Jackson, picking up the folder and putting it in the hidden safe in the closet beside the television.

'Such a gentleman,' replied Síle dryly, rolling her eyes as she ran her fingers through cherry red hair that had natural blonde roots right near the scalp. 'Don't trust me, do you?'

'No, I don't,' Jackson murmured, raising his eyebrows at her with a genteel smile.

Lisa stood up and walked to the door, holding out her husband's coat to him as he walked up. They both slipped on their coats as Síle watched, amused about something.

'You know, I saw your picture every time I went to Geneva,' she said, a little smirk on her face. 'But I never imagined you'd be so... short.'

'Incredible, because I didn't imagine that you'd be such an immature punk.'

Jackson looked over at Lisa with partially parted lips, his look as surprised as when she'd hit Hediyeh.

'I'll have you know that if it were my choice, I'd have Jackson kill you right now,' she hissed, narrowing her eyes and standing up straighter. 'I can see why the society's in such a disarray when people like you are given the chance to manage an entire continent. I guess their standards have fallen quite a bit.'

It seemed for a moment as though the two women were going to pounce on each other and have a smack-down right there in the entryway of the hotel room, but rather Lisa stepped aside and held her hand out to the door.

'You'll walk in front of us,' she said tersely. 'I don't want you anywhere in the vicinity of my back.'

Síle huffed a little before striding in front of her and out the door which Jackson held open. The Rippners followed closely after her as she walked to the lift, Jackson rubbing the small of Lisa's back, obviously pleased by her about-face. The ride back to the lobby was silent, the lift operator looking questioningly at Síle's attire, and when they finally made it to the curb, the doorman hailed a taxi for the Irish girl as she shivered against the wind.

'Have fun in hiding,' Lisa said with a smile, warm under her wool coat.

'And you have fun exacting revenge,' Síle replied with the same sarcastic smile.

'The information better be accurate, or we're gonna get ya!' said Lisa, malevolence dictating her every word.

'I wouldn't give you the wrong information,' said Síle in return, looking noticeably hurt. 'Hélène told me to give you the information, and there's no way I'd go against what she wanted me to do.'

The three of them walked up to the taxi as the doorman held open the door for Síle. She slipped in and the man tried to close the door, but Jackson grabbed the edge of it with a leather-gloved hand.

'Wait, why would you listen to Hélène? She doesn't have any sway in the society.'

'Yeah, but she has power over me, that's for certain,' she said, sticking her tongue out and then smiling. 'Typically a bad idea to go against what your Mum tells you to do.'

Jackson raised an eyebrow and Síle took that moment to grab the door and pull it shut. The taxi drove off leaving the very professional-looking Jackson and Lisa Rippner standing on the corner in the light snow watching as Síle disappeared to join her mother Hélène Lacroix in hiding


	15. Chapter 15

Jackson had seen Greg at Grand Central on Tuesday night. Lisa had already stepped out of the Borders to walk to the convenience store on the corner of 7th and West 58th, so when he saw the man walk by the tall picture windows in her direction, he could only fear the worst. When the cashier gave him the receipt, he grabbed his bag full of travel guides and maps harshly and moved quickly to the door, standing in the shadows of the late afternoon as he watched his former assistant walk around Columbus Circle and towards West 58th. Once the man crossed Broadway and disappeared into a crowd, Jackson broke into a sprint and ran along the remainder of Columbus Circle and a block of Central Park South, turning the corner onto 7th and checking to assure that Greg wasn't looking before crossing West 58th and grabbing his wife's hand as she walked out of the store with a small bag of groceries. She didn't ask any questions or even look around as he dragged her across the street to the subway station at 7th Avenue and West 57th.

She lost her balance on the last step and fell to her knees, dropping the bag and smashing its contents, but Jackson didn't allow her even a moment before pulling her up and towards the fortuitously waiting train. As he pulled her to a corner of the car, the other passengers looked at them oddly for a few seconds before Jackson just dove in and locked his lips upon hers to stop their questioning looks. They entered the darkness of the tunnel and Jackson kept his face close to her own as she looked at him nervously.

'Who was it?' she whispered, her voice barely audible above the clanking and squealing of the subway train; she pressed the palms of her hands to his back.

'My ex-assistant,' he replied, his lips now close to her ear as he watched the people on the train in the reflection off of the window. 'He was on the list of people loyal to Pedram.'

'Well...' she muttered, looking past his face and to the people sitting around on the train. 'What do we do?'

'We're going to go back to the hotel. I need you to pack all of our clothes and toiletries as I pack the documents for the... project. As soon as we're finished, we'll go to the airport and leave for whichever city has the flight leaving the soonest.'

'So all the planning-'

'Some decisions have to be made at the spur of the moment,' Jackson interrupted. 'Sometimes, nothing goes according to plan.'

By late Thursday night, Lisa was looking down the busy Dong Fang Road in the heart of the Shanghai business district as she numbly unpacked their bags, which had just been flung to the side when they arrived late the night before. Before dawn, from what she could tell, Jackson had left the hotel with a knife and a few documents. When she'd woken up hours later, there was a terse note explaining that Danielle had arrived in the early morning and that they would be out for the entire day. She had absolutely no intention of doing so, but Jackson added that she shouldn't wander around the city, so she spent her entire day nervously flitting about the room, walking around the hotel for short amounts of time hoping to catch her husband coming back to the room, or unpacking and repacking the bags, not knowing how quickly Jackson would want to move once he came back from business.

At ten thirty, there was a light knock on the door and Lisa stood, staring at the door only to see the maid come in with the night-cap she'd requested fifteen minutes earlier. She watched the woman straighten the room a bit and turn down the bed covers, trying to seem completely calm the entire time.

'Would you like for me to turn down your husband's side also, Madame Poulain?' the petite maid asked politely, giving Lisa a little smile.

Lisa swallowed, looking from her leather seat to the lights of the city beyond the window. 'No, that won't be necessary. I'm not sure when he's coming in.'

'All right,' replied the woman with the same politeness; Lisa was relieved that she didn't want to pry into their business. 'Oh, and madam?'

'Yes?'

'We received this message for you earlier today, from your children,' she said, walking over with a plastic disk case containing a mini disk. 'The manager asked me to bring it to you with your night-cap.'

'Oh, thank you,' Lisa said, holding the case to her chest. 'Have a nice night.'

'And you also, ma'am,' the woman said, bowing before walking out of the door.

Lisa watched after her for a moment before going over to the television and popping the tiny disk into the drive on the side of the screen. A blue screen popped up with the word 'LOADING' across the top, but after a moment, a close-up view of Hediyeh fooling with the camera phone came into view. She made a happy noise and flopped back against the couch, landing partially on Jonathan, who shoved her off. She immediately stuck her tongue out at him before Joe's voice came from off-screen.

'Come on, you guys,' her father's smooth and comforting voice said. 'You need to record a nice message for your parents, not just remind them of why they shouldn't have created you in the first place.'

Lisa laughed a little and leaned forward, smiling at the screen.

'Hi Mommy and Daddy,' volunteered Matthew, moving from off-screen and getting too close to the camera so his image was fuzzy.

'Come back here, Matt. You're too close,' Hediyeh said. 'You're gonna look like a nose.'

He backed up and ended up sitting down between his siblings on the floor. Hediyeh messed up his hair. 'Madar, Baba, everything's great here in Miami. We're having a lot of fun with Grandpa, and Grandma's coming tomorrow.'

'Scupper doesn't like it here because it's hot, but he likes sleeping on the tile on the floor in Grandpa's kitchen. He also really likes curling up with Grandpa's kitty, but the kitty doesn't seem to like him much because she hisses at him and tries to scratch him, but she doesn't have any claws,' Matthew said quickly.

'I'm sleeping in your old room and the boys are sleeping in that room your cousin used to stay in when he came to visit.'

'We're not going to school,' Jonathan said softly, tipping his head to the side and looking rather bored. 'We're being tutored by the nanny because she believes it's safer than sending up out to school.'

'I like it better,' Matthew cut in. 'We can have recess a lot of different times a day. I think Addy would have liked it too, because she liked playing outside.'

There was a slightly sombre air added, and Lisa closed her eyes and swallowed uncomfortably before Hediyeh continued. 'We're all doing great, Mamani. Don't worry. I know that Baba doesn't worry about anything, but you're always more concerned than he is. We all wish that we could talk to you and know where you are, but Sharena says that it's better for all of us if we just make these video messages and send them off after you.'

'We give them to the nanny and she passes them to that Ukrainian woman,' Jonathan explained. 'Wherever you are, I hope you're both safe and that you're coming home soon. I like visiting Grandpa, but I really want to go home.'

Joe took that moment to come out from behind the camera phone and smile into the camera. 'Hi Leese, honey. The kids have been doing really well... your mother recommended someone locally to talk to them, and they've been handling everything a lot better than we expected them too.'

'We're still sitting here, Pedar,' said Hediyeh dryly, and Lisa could see her suddenly get pounced on by Scupper.

'But,' he said, ignoring Hediyeh. 'We all really miss you and Jackson, and we look forward to seeing both of you when you get back from your... business trip. I love you, Leese.'

'We all love them!' screamed Hediyeh, obviously being the target of a severe licking by the dog.

'We all love you,' Joe said with a huge smile. 'Until our next message!'

He reached up beyond the screen and it faded back to blue. Lisa smiled again, standing and walking to the television to turn it off and put the little disk back in its holder. She was about to slip it onto the desk next to Jackson's laptop when she heard footsteps outside of the door. Her heart leapt to her throat and she cautiously walked to the entryway, picking up a gun that Jackson had left for her on a side table. Pressing her back to the wall, she slipped over to look hesitantly through the peep hole, confusion written plainly on her face when she saw no one standing there. Only a second later, there was the metallic sound of the electronic lock slipping and the door jarred slightly toward her. As it cracked open, she held her breath as a blood-stained hand curved around the wood. She pressed herself farther against the wall as it creaked slowly on its hinges. Taking a deep breath, she jumped forward and held the gun defensively in front of her only to drop it in surprise.

'Oh my God...' she murmured, pressing her hands to her mouth.

Blood was covering nearly every inch of his suit and plastered his hair up at odd angles. He was breathing very oddly, and from what she could tell, he'd bruised a rib at some point during the day. His left arm was tucked up against his torso and was badly cut. He gave her an oddly covert look before closing the door and leaning up against it, tapping his head against the heavy wood. She waited for him to speak, but he just stood there looking conflicted. The five feet between them felt like miles.

'Jackson, what-'

It was then that he finally looked at her, and what she saw made her knees give out from under her.

Lust. Pure, unadulterated lust. It was tangible and written as plain as day in his eyes-something she'd never seen before in her husband. It wasn't the look he gave her before Jonathan's conception nor the look he gave her when she dressed in scandalous lingerie on his birthday, not even the look he gave her when they'd run off to Catalina without the kids and had lascivious, illegal sex in the Wrigley Memorial. There was something all together different about this, something that made her feel filthy. She fell back against the couch, unsure of what to make of this, but intrigued. After a moment, he took a couple of steps toward her, pulling his knife from the holder on his belt. As he took slow strides closer, he dropped the knife and his jacket, and by the time he was close enough for her to feel his breath, he'd undone the first button of his shirt.

'She put up quite a fight,' he said in an almost dangerously low voice, moving to close the inches between them. 'But in the end...'

He reached up and put a bloody hand on her bare arm and she jumped with a gasp, almost inadvertently recoiling. When he tipped his head, she looked at him with wide eyes, but that just made him smirk and he quickly brought his lips harshly to hers, reaching up with the other hand to cradle the back of her head. She could feel the stickiness of the blood matting her hair, but she was more preoccupied with his biting her lip than anything. She let out a muffled scream when he drew blood, but when he deepened the kiss in return, she just let her mind wander. His hands ran down the silk of her short night gown, tracing the curves of her waist and lower back before he slipped his hands under her and shoved her up onto the back of the couch.

Then, something came over her, and she reached between them to shove him away. He was startled, giving her the same powerfully lusty look as she slipped off of the couch and stared at him with her own blood running down her chin. There was an uncomfortable pause before she took one solid stride towards him and locked her lips onto the apex of his neck and shoulder, biting and sucking at the skin as she shoved him back against the door. He groaned as he ran his hands sensuously down her back before hooking his fingers on the thin lace straps of the night gown and simply ripping them rather than waiting for her to free her arms from the task of unbuttoning his shirt. In response, she tore open the remainder of his shirt and quickly began licking the blood on his chest. He pulled off the shirt and tossed it to the side before asserting his dominance once again, pushing harshly against the wall.

His fingers tangled themselves in her hair and he pulled her head back, which made her gasp softly as her neck arced back against the wall, her chest thrust forward. He nibbled lightly from her jaw to in between her breasts before turning his full attention to the right nipple. Goose-bumps spread down her arms as she clawed at his upper back.

'Too many clothes,' she said breathily, her fingers curled in the thin fabric of his undershirt.

She could feel his smile against her chest as he nibbled at her nipple between his teeth. As he pulled back his head, tension shot through her chest and she bit her lip, stuck in a confusing area between pain and ecstasy. She moaned, but it sounded more like a stifled scream, and Jackson released her nipple, bending his head to press a gossamer kiss on the now-tight flesh before stepping back from her. She pressed the palms of her hands against the wall for support, her knees still refusing to co-operate completely as she watched him pull his blood-soaked undershirt over his head. He was teasing her, she realised, as he slowly went through the motions of removing his belt, his eyes teasing her with every excruciatingly slow move.

'Jackson...' she said dangerously, giving him a dark look as she willed herself to stand straight. He only smirked, inching down his fly. 'You're teasing me.'

'Suddenly I'm not allowed to play with my prey?' he purred, stopping to stand with his pants undone. 'Cruel.'

'As long as you promise to eat it,' she replied smoothly, stepping to him and putting a hand on his chest as the other reached down to cup his crotch. 'I guess it will be all right.'

His lips formed into a perfect 'o' as he looked at her with a feigned scandalised expression. 'Lascivious.'

Rather than responding vocally, she slowly sunk to her knees, pulling his pants and boxers down with her. Then, starting at his knee, she licked a path to his chest before kissing softly up his neck and finally fully against his lips. They stood there, body to body, for several long moments before Jackson suddenly picked her up and she wrapped her legs eagerly around his hips as he walked awkwardly to the bedroom, still kissing her deeply as he went to the room. Once there, he threw her onto the bed and she laughed, her curls bouncing as she eagerly situated herself in the centre of the pillows and duvet that had been set there by the maid earlier.

She had expected him to immediately jump her or at least slip in the bed beside her, but instead he just stared at her, his eyes tracing every curve of her body from her swollen and still bleeding lips to the artfully waxed area between her muscular thighs. In confusion, she found herself mimicking him as she looked at the bruises and scars all over his chest, the old blood from the earlier assassination that was rapidly being re-wettened with his sweat, and the red tone his hair had taken from the same mess. She readjusted herself, spreading her legs all come-hither, opening the stance of her entire body as she smiled at him.

'No more teasing,' she said with a sultry voice.

He considered it for a moment before going to the edge of the bed and crawling towards her, slinking between her legs and reaching just above her belly button before pausing and allotting her the same smirk she'd seen earlier before moving back a half crawl and dropping his chin to rest on the edge of her stomach.

'Shall I eat it then?' he asked almost rhetorically, weaving his arm back towards her vagina and tracing the line down towards her clitoris. 'Or perhaps just play some more...'

Before she could answer, his deft fingers hand found her clitoris. Just the initial contact sent chills up her spine, and when he exposed it to the air of the room and blew a bit on the mound, she gasped slightly. Slowly, with his index finger, he began drawing light circles around it and she closed her eyes, savouring in the feeling as he began applying more pressure, feeling her melt into him. Little inklings of pleasure crept up her stomach and she smiled, her breathing increasing slightly. As his speed increased, she pressed into his touch, curling her face into her shoulder as she raised her eyebrows sensuously. Her body was responding more and more to his touch, her wetness increasing with each movement. She curled her toes into the duvet.

The sense of pleasure had now found its way to her spine and made it all the way up to her brain and back again. Pressure was building around her ovaries and concentrating itself in the general area as he hastened his movements only to back off in another round of teasing. Even with the slower and lighter touch, her breath still came in quick puffs, and when he suddenly began again with all gusto, her response was even stronger than it had been before. She pressed the back of one hand to her forehead, biting her lip as she did so, and the other hand grabbed blindly at the duvet as she arched her back, the breath coming raggedly through her nose. With his other hand, he massaged her inner thigh and pubic bone as he watched lustfully at the effect he and he alone was having on her.

After a few moments of intense action on his part, she could feel iciness creep down her legs and stomach, all rushing down to meet his fingertips. When the moment arrived and everything met, her hips thrust up and she screamed out his name as her wetness dripped onto the bedspread. Immediately, her clitoris was over-stimulated and his touch brought her pain, but rather than keeping away from her, he climbed atop her and entered her, inciting another great moan. The pain melded into the throbbing from her blood rushing as quickly as possible to join the party down at her crotch; the blood loss in her brain made her feel like she was floating wonderfully and everything took on a softer cast. When she refocused, she found that the thing she'd been staring at was her husband's face and that now, his hair was brushing against her own forehead. Every time he thrust into her, she could feel his little puff of breath against her cheek. Her face was pressed on its side into the fine cotton of the pillowcase, and as she felt herself working up to another climax, she bit the pillow, stifling her scream. He dropped his face to meet her own, kissing up her jaw-line before taking her earlobe in his teeth and gnawing softly. She reached up and grabbed his shoulder blades, digging her fingers into his back as she wrapped one of her legs around his own.

He climaxed, releasing into her, and only moments after, she reached her second pinnacle of pleasure, squirming in his arms as he laid on top of her sweating, smearing the now completely revitalised blood over her body. She centred her head on the pillow and looked up at him for a moment before brushing his hair out of his eyes. Something was different now, she realised, as she looked into his transparent irises; he looked like he was completely scandalised by his actions, or as though he'd just woken from an odd dream. He looked down at her with his eyebrows knit together, meeting her look before stiffly running his fingers through her hair and unceremoniously rolling off of her, staining the white sheets with the target's blood. Before she could turn her head completely to look at him, blood still running down her chin, he'd sat up with his back to her on the edge of the bed. When she reached out to touch him, his back arched away from her outstretched fingers.

'I'm sorry, Leese,' he said in a half-voice.

'For what?' she asked after a moment, still breathing hard.

'I shouldn't...' Jackson replied simply before standing and walking to the window to look out at the Shanghai skyline.

Lisa gathered her thoughts and pushed her hair behind her ears before following, pressing herself up against him, slipping her arms under his and placing her hands on his chest and her cheek against the back of his neck. She could hear his pulse throbbing in the arteries.

'It's all right,' she said, pressing a kiss on his neck.

'No, it's not,' he replied, his tone terse. 'I used to... it's not all right.'

She wasn't going to let him go that easily. 'Just tell me, Jackson.'

In the reflection off of the glass, she could see his face scrunch up in contemplation and some annoyance. Finally, he reached up with his left hand and laid it atop her own. 'It's a reaction.'

Nuzzling her face against him, she sighed a little. 'So it's a reaction. It's not something horrible to deal with.'

'I was trained-'

'I don't care, Jack. I really couldn't care less if-'

'I was trained by Lyna,' he finished, and she stopped nuzzling.

'What do you-'

'I haven't been completely up front with you about the relationship that I had with Lyna,' he replied, turning in her arms to face her. 'Remember when we were in the train, and I was choking Lyna, and she said that it was just like old times?'

Lisa didn't have much of a memory of the train that night, but she nodded anyway.

'We were long time lovers.'

She paused before smiling with knit eyebrows. 'I pretty much came to that conclusion from the power of your hate for the woman.'

'The hate is from her trying to kill me,' he said quickly. 'The sex was mind-boggling, but very angry.'

Lisa's eyes flittered to the bloody bed before she looked back at her husband. 'Come on, let's shower this blood off and clean this place a little so the maid doesn't think we kill-'

He raised an eyebrow and she laughed.

'Well, let's at least shower.'


	16. Chapter 16

It became more and more obvious to Joe Reisert what a loner his grandson was as he watched him in comparison to his other grandchildren. He wasn't completely sure if it was because of the death of his sister and Hediyeh's related concern for her living twin or perhaps if he just missed his parents, but whatever it was, he was curious about it. That weekend, the beginning of the third week that his parents had been gone, Joe sat with his ex-wife and Sharena on the beach watching Jonathan as the women chatted and laughed at Hediyeh and Matthew playing in the surf. The older boy sat in the shade of a large umbrella, sunglasses covering his eyes as he read a book on one of the plagues. The laughs of his siblings rang out over the surf as Joe got up and moved over to him, settling beside him on a second chaise lounge.

'What are you reading, Jonny?'

Jonathan didn't bother looking up at him as he turned the page. 'A book about the influenza pandemic during the second World War. I found it on Dad's bookshelf at home.'

Joe raised an eyebrow, smiling uncomfortably. 'Sometimes I think I need to look at your birth certificate to make sure you're actually seven.'

'I'm nearly eight,' he answered immediately, closing the book and looking over at his grandfather. 'And the nanny says that I remind her of Dad when he was younger.'

Immediately, Joe felt a chill as he reached out and grabbed his grandson's shoulder. 'Really. When did she say that?'

'She says it all the time,' he replied, taking off his sunglasses and looking at his grandfather with the same blue eyes that so unnerved Joe when he first met Jackson. 'She said that when he first arrived into her care, he was already reading college texts and he wasn't even in junior high yet.'

Jonathan ran his fingers along the spine of the book, looking down uncomfortably at the linen cover.

'I don't think she's telling me everything about him though,' Jonathan admitted, looking up at his grandfather with his eyebrows knit. 'Sometimes she seems worried like I'm going to hurt Hedi and Matt, and whenever I bring it up with her, she just repeats that I act so much like Dad. I don't even know what I'm doing.'

Joe tightened his grip around Jonathan's shoulders. 'Your father has a lot of interesting things that happened in his past and-'

'Is that why people killed Adalia?' Jonathan interrupted, his hands gripping onto the book so hard that his knuckles were white. 'Is it because of something Dad did? Grandpa, why was I born in Syria? How did Mum and Dad meet? Why do they say it's top secret?'

This wasn't a line of questions that Joe was prepared to answer, but he'd set a trap and stepped on it himself. Stalling for time, he took off his glasses and pinched the ridge of his nose before leaning back in the chaise lounge and thinking how to best word his responses.

'I think that maybe... this may be the best time for all of us to sit down together and discuss the past. Your parents haven't wanted you to know because the organisation he once worked for is a very potent and active threat, but now that he's been pulled back into it, all of you may be pulled into it also. There are parts of the story I know, parts your grandmother knows, and huge parts that Nanny Sharena knows.'

'How big is this?'

He considered exactly what Jonathan was asking before answering. 'In comparison to most things, it's huge. But you've already had it softened by your father's rules and training exercises, so you have at least a moderate understanding of the force involved.'

'Correct,' he replied almost robotically. 'When will we have this talk? Soon?'

'When we go in for lunch. All of you can clean off and the adults will talk in the atrium until you're all ready, and then we'll piece together the story as best we can, all right?'

Jonathan perked up and suddenly had the softness of a nearly eight-year-old boy. 'Thanks, Grandpa. We've all been really confused because of this and the questions...'

'We'll try our best to answer them. Now, why don't you play with Hedi and Matt for at least a few minutes while I go over this with the girls.'

He was hesitant, but after a few moments, placed the book in Joe's hands and ran off into the ocean. Soon, he and Hediyeh were having an all-out battle for dominance and Joe had a fleeting memory of when they'd all come to visit last summer and it was Jackson with Matt and Lisa with Adalia playing chicken with one another. The bases weren't exactly doing their part, choosing to instead make-out after a couple of minutes, and even under Adalia's shrieks to 'pull away, he'll be knocked over!', the kissing continued until Adalia kicked Jackson under the chin. He pulled her, holding her upside down from the evil ankle and she screamed happily before he dropped her in the warm salt water.

When the memory faded, he found himself looking at three suddenly severe children who were wondering if some news had come in since the message six days earlier that confirmed the deaths of Tahirah Shoucair in Shanghai and Ana Gacitùa in Sydney. They knew that the adults had been watching the news networks for the fallout to begin, and considering that Lyna had been gone for the last couple of days, there was a general feeling that something was about to be leaked.

'C'mon, chillins. Let's get back in the house before you get your skin all blistered,' said Sharena as each child filed past her, Hediyeh looking at her covertly with a questioning look.

Once they were all inside Jackson's seaside condo, the children went to clean up and the adults gathered in the living room. They sat in silence looking at each other as the shower ran in the other room.

'You told them that we'd explain everything, didn't you?' asked Carol, folding her hands in her lap.

'Yes,' Joe answered simply. 'Their lives are in upheaval, and they all have the right to know why.'

Carol opened her mouth to speak, but Sharena spoke first. 'The news of Shanghai and Sydney is already on the major networks. The kids know about the World Society and they know that their parents are abroad. Sooner or later, one of them is going to make the connection. We should let them know what their father does for a living.'

'_Did_ for a living,' argued Joe.

'_Does_,' replied Sharena sternly. 'His isn't a job that you can just up and leave. He was never promised a normal life; he's too special.'

'What's special about him?' asked Carol, tipping her head to look at Sharena, who sat beside her.

'Well, when he was very young-' Sharena started, then shook her head. 'I'll tell everyone when the kids come out.'

'Where are Jackson's parents?' asked Joe suddenly, and Sharena noticeably tensed.

'You don't know?'

'Know what?'

At that, the door opened and Matthew walked out with wet hair and wearing pyjamas despite the fact that it was the middle of the day. He went straight to his grandmother, settling in her lap and nuzzling against her-Joe believed the reason that he had such an affinity for his grandmother was that his mother took so much after her. Hediyeh and Jonathan followed soon after him (Hediyeh going for Sharena, whom she liked because she sparred with her as much as Jackson did, and Jonathan just settling alone in a chair-he wasn't particularly fond of anyone), and after some contemplation, Sharena started.

'How much do you kids know about your Daddy?'

'He's smart,' said Matthew. 'And he speaks a lot of languages. But he doesn't like people except us and Mommy.'

'He fought terrorists to save Mum,' Jonathan replied.

Without even thinking, Joe spoke. 'Your father was a terrorist.'

The children all immediately stared at him, Carol looked stunned and Sharena rolled her eyes.

'I didn't think he was a terrorist when he was saving Lisa-maman from being killed in Syria,' said Hediyeh defensively, moving to the edge of her seat and glaring at her grandfather. 'He saved Lisa-maman and he saved me. Baba was _never _a terrorist.'

Sharena reached out and pulled Hediyeh back towards her, surprised to find that Hediyeh was nearly shaking with rage. 'Calm down, missy. I'm just going to make this easy on everyone by starting at the beginning.'

Hediyeh crossed her arms with a little huff and looked over at her brother Jonathan, who was sitting very attentively and waiting for Sharena to start. She was looking all business.

'Well, your Daddy was born in Albany, New York, but his parents didn't expect to have a baby. Once he was old enough, they sent him to boarding school about twenty minutes from home, so if his parents were too busy to pick him up, he could always spend the night. They only spoke French at the school, so he quickly became more comfortable speaking French than English. He didn't speak much to his parents because neither spoke French and he didn't feel competent enough in English to communicate fully with them, so his parents thought that he wasn't learning anything in the school and pulled him from it, sending him to the Albany public schools where he was constantly tormented because of his small size and his inability to speak comfortably with his classmates. He was beaten up a lot and grew stoic to pain and emotion to keep himself sane.

'His father wasn't home often in the first nine or ten years of his life, but during the decline of the eighties, his father lost his job and came back from New York City to live with the family. That year was also a harsh winter,' she raised her eyebrows. 'And I'd know, 'cause I lived in the area, and one day, honey-child was home from school because of the snow. His daddy was in a sore mood and decided to put the boy outside in his pyjamas. So he took him by the hair and dragged him out to the backyard, Jackson struggling the whole way. Long story short, his daddy went back inside and Jackson followed not too long after with an axe and took care of both his mom and dad.'

Joe and Carol gaped, and Joe was the first to find his voice. 'He killed...?'

'Killed both of his parents. His father was almost unidentifiable and he partially severed his mom's head from her body. He went into state custody and was given to his aunt for a little while until he stabbed his cousin and was sent to the psychiatric institute where I worked,' Sharena said before backing up. 'Wait... what did he tell you about his parents?'

'He didn't really bring them up,' Carol said. 'Lisa told us that they were dead, but she didn't go into details.'

Sharena nodded. 'Well, it wasn't too long after he came that he managed his first project.'

'What kind of project?' asked Matthew innocently, obviously not catching on to the gravity of the situation. 'Did he do managing work like he did in Costa Mesa?'

Carol tightened her grip on Matthew before Sharena spoke again. 'He arranged the murder of one of his roommates.'

'Like Adalia?' he asked in a tiny voice, curling into his grandmother.

'No,' Sharena replied strongly. 'Never like Adalia. The boy may have questionable morals, but he'd never willingly hurt someone like that. He hung the boy from a bed with his school uniform tie and had a nurse inject him with a poison. He never felt a thing.'

'Dad said that Adalia didn't feel a thing either,' said Jonathan in a tone that was stunningly unfeeling, and Matthew immediately burst into tears.

'Daddy killed Adalia!' he cried loudly, struggling against his grandmother's grip.

'This was a terrible idea,' Carol said angrily, beginning to stand with Matthew held tightly in her arms.

'Sit down!' Joe yelled, pointing at her harshly as he raised his eyebrows. 'They need to know what their father does for a living!'

Hediyeh gritted her teeth and dug her fingernails into her forearm, but said nothing. Jonathan looked at his sister questioningly with the sudden realisation that she'd been withholding information from her other siblings, and Matthew continued crying as his grandmother sat back down, almost stunned by her ex-husband's outburst.

'Jonny, don't say another word, do you hear me?' Joe asked him, and Jonathan just nodded numbly. 'Continue.'

'It was at that point that the head doctor at the institute decided to submit Jackson's name as the top choice for a World Society scholarship. His file was reviewed and accepted, and from that point, he became our golden boy. He had a great talent for languages, no family to speak of, had a deep understanding of how to manage things, and best of all, he was alexithymic.'

Carol furrowed her brow. 'Are you sure? That's a very rare-'

'If the condition is rare, some people have to have it,' Sharena interrupted. 'And he's definitely one of them. He has the emotional capacity of a goldfish.'

Jonathan did a little snorting laugh, but Hediyeh glared at Sharena. 'If you think that Baba doesn't show emotions...'

'Honey, you met him after he married your Mama,' Sharena said, putting an arm around Hediyeh. 'Your Mama changed him like only one person ever did before, except your Mama's a lot more patient than Melissa Bayley.'

'She has a talent for seeing the good in people,' said Joe proudly.

But Sharena was more concerned with getting Jackson's story across. 'Eventually, the head of the World Society adopted him, but there was a growing concern that Jackson wasn't dependable enough to become the head because of problems he'd had like the suicide attempt and his problems with his assassin.'

'Suicide attempt?' asked Carol.

'In Nigeria. He shot himself in the stomach and then tried to drown himself in the bathtub,' Sharena said, and then laughed. 'Rumour is, he was aiming for his chest and missed.'

'That's _funny_?' Carol demanded.

'Oh, we all had a big laugh about it,' Sharena replied, still laughing. 'The boy has worse aim than a blind man after a bottle of absinthe.'

'What was the top secret assignment with Mom and Dad?' asked Jonathan, leaning back in his chair.

'Top secret assignment?' asked Sharena, raising an eyebrow.

'Your parents met on an aeroplane from Dallas to Miami,' said Joe, crossing his arms. 'Lisa was in Dallas for a funeral and came back on the red eye flight. She met Jackson in line, they went to a bar, and they were sitting next each other on the flight.'

'We know that,' said Matthew, finally calmed down and partially buried in his grandmother's jacket.

Joe pinched his lips together. 'Your father was sent to get your mother to make a call so that a man could be murdered. He tormented her, battered her, and mentally tortured her for the entire flight. When the plane landed, she stabbed him in the neck and ran, but he was able to follow her home.'

He thought back to that day when Lisa came home in a panic, her entrance heralded by an SUV breaking through his front door. He'd gone to the kitchen to get the first aid kit and was met by a young, clean-cut man with bright eyes that were covered in dark hair. Before he was even able to ask who he was, the younger man had knocked him out and the next thing he remembered _clearly_ was hearing Lisa fall down the stairs.

'We both ended up shooting him and he almost died, but they were able to save him, and Lisa just gravitated towards him,' he said, biting the inside of his cheek. 'She said that she saw something in him that made her think he wasn't all evil.'

'Because he's not,' said Sharena confidently. 'He's just... an odd sort of good.'

Silence hung over them for a second.

'So what you're telling us is that Mom and Dad met because Dad was trying to kill her?' asked Jonathan.

'No, he doesn't-' Sharena said, then cleared her throat. '_Didn't_ do his own kills.'

'What are Mommy and Daddy doing?' asked Matthew in a tiny voice.

'They are in Benin,' said a voice from behind them, and Joe turned around to see Lyna walk into the room. The lift closed behind her. 'I just got the call from my contact, and she is supposed to meet them at the airport in an hour. And I see we have told the children about their flawless father, judging by the look on young Matthew's face.'

Matthew sat up straight and met her cold gaze, refusing to back down. She just smiled with a little laugh.

'Copying your father is your brother's job, little boy,' she hissed, putting a hand on her hip as her mouth curved from the smile to an absolute smirk. 'But yes, Abioye Oshodi will be killed within the day, and we can only hope that it will be just as spectacular as Jackson's last two murders.


	17. Chapter 17

There was a sickening thud at Melissa slammed into the wall of her room and crumpled to the floor. Her daughter screamed uselessly from the other side of the room where she was being held by one of Pedram's associates, who just tightened his grip on the girl, bruising her ribs in the process. Tears ran down her face as she watched her mother pull herself slowly into a sitting position, her face bruised and her hair lank. Melissa cradled one of her arms, and it seemed as though the shoulder had been popped out of place.

'I told you already! I have no idea where he is!' said Melissa dangerously, spitting out a mouthful of blood when she finished.

'He keeps sending you these messages, Bayley!' replied Pedram, holding up Melissa's cell phone before flinging it at her. Melissa moved out of the way and it hit the wall before clattering onto the floor beside her.

'You know what I know,' Melissa said, leaning back against the wall as she looked past Pedram to her daughter. 'He sends the messages to me, but he doesn't tell me where he is or what he's doing.'

Pedram set her jaw. 'It's funny to you, isn't it? All of his little jokes?'

'It's funny that you get so upset but don't do anything,' said Melissa dryly, a weak smile forming on her face before she spoke in a sing-song voice. 'Seven little whores beggin' for a shilling, one stays in Henage Court, then there's a killing...'

'Stop it!' screamed Pedram, striding over to Melissa and pulling her up by a combination of her shirt collar and her hair.

But Melissa didn't stop. 'Six little whores, glad to be alive... one sidles up to Jack, then there are five.'

Pedram shoved her unceremoniously against the wall, pushing her by her neck until she stood on tip-toe. 'I will not hesitate to kill you and your daughter.'

'You know... you can't kill... her...' Melissa gasped, grabbing at her hands with her good arm. 'You'll lose... all... validity...'

With a sharp intake of breath, Pedram let go of her and let her fall to the floor, stomping over to the door without looking at her associate. The man let go of Agatha and pushed her harshly towards her mother; the girl's toe caught on something and she landed messily in front of Melissa, who reached out and beckoned her closer. Agatha got to her knees and crawled to her mother, taking her in her arms and glaring at Pedram's retreating back.

'Four and whore rhyme aright,' she said with a hiss, and Pedram paused for only a moment before slamming the door behind her, leaving the two in darkness.

When Jackson told her that they would be meeting a nurse named Augustine Brookstone, Lisa imagined a crotchety old British widow, so when they were approached by a tall, slightly overweight young woman dressed in the all-white stereotypical nurse outfit complete with a starched little hat placed atop her dark brown hair, she openly gawked. Augustine returned the look, but not to Lisa-from the pictures in the halls of the World Society branch in Cotonou, she'd always expected Jackson to be taller. The three stood uncomfortably, Augustine staring at the turtleneck that Jackson was wearing in the hot weather of Benin and Lisa flexing her hand on the hard plastic handle of her rolling bag.

Lisa cleared her throat. 'You're Augustine?'

'I'm Augustine,' she replied, and it was quite obvious that she was from the Southern United States, which surprised Lisa even more. 'We need to hurry; I'm on my lunch break, and your flight was late.'

'Are you taking us to meet someone else?' asked Jackson as they followed her, obviously not pleased that their contact in the area was a twenty-something who was only able to pick them up because their flight happened to land when she was on break.

'No, I'm your contact,' she said, sounding immensely bored as she walked out of the automatic doors of the airport. 'Lyna said that when you get the crap beaten out of you, she wants someone she trusts to be able to handle it.'

Lisa reached out and grabbed her, spinning her around forcefully. 'What makes you think that anything would happen to him?'

Augustine looked at her dryly before pulling her arm out of Lisa's grip. 'You know more about the person he's going after than I do; I just take orders and follow them. I don't work for your little society, so I'm not all up on the goings on. If I'm contacted by someone to take care of another person, I'll take care of him. I just do it for a little extra cash.'

'So you know about the World Society,' Jackson mentioned, raising his chin a bit as Augustine pulled out her keys, flipping through the myriad items on the key ring.

'I know _of_ it, yeah,' she said, yanking at the back door of an old, beat-up Land Rover. 'My parents were both doctors in it, but they put me up for adoption when I was a baby. Lyna started contact with me when I moved to Africa a few years ago because the last medical contact in the region was killed, and she figured with my genetics, you know.'

The door finally popped open and Augustine nearly flung into Lisa and Jackson before catching herself and gesturing to the back of the vehicle, which had a bunch of well-used medical textbooks flung all over the floor.

'Sorry about the mess,' she said with a shrug. 'I don't normally have guests.'

Jackson and Lisa looked at one another for a moment before she climbed into the back. Jackson handed their luggage up to her before getting in himself, and Augustine closed the door behind them before coming around and getting in the right-hand driver's seat. She started the engine on the third try and they pulled away from the airport.

The city of Cotonou was an oddity. Lisa hadn't been out of the country except for the normal American spring break trips to Cancun or the Bahamas before being dragged off to Syria by her captors seven years earlier, and although her bird's eye view of Shanghai revealed odd slums in the city, she hadn't seen anything like Cotonou. She snuck a look over to her husband, trying to see if he was looking over the surroundings like she was, but he just sat looking rather bored, pulling at the turtleneck that covered the damage she'd done a couple of night before in their Sydney hotel room. The road they drove on didn't have any lines painted on it, and to their right, there was an open-air market with a shantytown in it, in front of them modern skyscrapers with dilapidated apartment buildings at their bases, and to their left, sidewalks with dozens of people walking on them that were wide enough to have two lanes of cars on them. In the centre of the sidewalks, posts holding billboards for coffee, cigarettes, and sodas just like one would see off the highways in Miami. A girl chatting animatedly on a mobile phone walked by followed soon after by a couple of older women dressed in native clothing and carrying on their heads baskets of groceries they'd just picked up at the market.

After dodging through traffic, they made it to a bridge, and as Lisa watched people fishing in the waters under them, Jackson looked questioningly out of the back window.

'Where are we going?'

'I live in Sèmè-Kpodji,' Augustine replied. 'It's about halfway-'

'I know where Sèmè-Kpodji is,' he said before focusing his attention back on his turtleneck. Augustine just gave him a dirty look in the mirror.

'Why Africa?' Lisa asked after they'd been driving in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes.

Augustine considered it. 'Just wanted to help people. When I found out that my parents were both doctors, I wanted to follow what they did, but I didn't want to go to school for that long. My adopted parents were really into volunteering and stuff, so I decided to do work with the Red Cross, and this is where they sent me.'

Jackson seemed to think that what she was saying was too funny-or perhaps too ironic, considering for what she was aiding them-so he had sleekly put a hand over his mouth and looked at her reflection in the grimy rear-view mirror.

'So you never met your parents?' asked Lisa, and Jackson figured that she was trying to make up for her faux pas earlier.

'Nope,' Augustine replied. 'And Lyna tells me they're both dead, so I guess there's no meeting them now. It doesn't really matter though-apparently they had a lot of enemies, so I much prefer my adoptive parents.'

Almost immediately, Jackson started laughing loudly, leaning forward to put his elbows on his knees as he held his hands loosely together and looked up at Augustine again. 'Oh, you have to be shitting me.'

Lisa gave him a confused look, as did Augustine in the rear-view mirror.

'I am absolutely convinced at this point in time that the society is nothing but a huge mechanism of mental inbreeding,' he said, dropping his head and reaching up to run a hand through his hair before turning his face to look up at Lisa, who was staring at him. 'You know who she is, don't you? Who her parents are?'

She slowly turned to look at Augustine, who had pulled the car off the road to turn completely around and look at Jackson as though he'd just spoken in tongues. The two women looked questioningly at one another before Lisa looked back at him.

'Jackson, I know barely anything about-'

'You know about this,' he said, leaning back in his seat and biting his lip with a little nod of his head before speaking in a detached voice. 'Dr Philip Greene and Dr Elisabeth Millwood.'

Lisa gaped at him, but Augustine smiled. 'You knew my parents?'

Neither of them answered her, Lisa with her back to the younger woman as she just stared at Jackson, who laughed a little more and put both of his hands over his face. Lisa turned, her knees pressed together with her hands flat-palmed atop them, hesitant to look at Augustine because of the sudden realisation that she had her father's eyes. Jackson reached out blindly and ran his fingers through her hair; Augustine didn't press the issue and just started driving again towards the less populated and far more lush area of Sèmè-Kpodji.

'You'll have to hang around in the nurses' room until my shift is over,' she announced once they began to reach the outskirts of the city. 'The hotels in the city are a little questionable, so Lyna thought you might prefer staying in my apartment. I hope you don't mind.'

That night, the three of them sat in the kitchen of Augustine's apartment, Jackson hiding behind a dossier with his glasses slipping down his nose as he ate some shrimp dish that Augustine had prepared from food she picked up from the open-air market after work. Lisa had stood to the side feeling utterly out of place as the two chatted in fast French with the seller, both smiling as they bargained with the woman. As they walked back to the car with Augustine attempting to balance a basket of groceries on her head, Jackson had assured Lisa that because of being adopted, the nurse was absolutely nothing like either of her biological parents - they spoke different dialects of French and after all, Millwood and Greene were both from overly WASP Boston families and Augustine had at some point mentioned in the blur of French conversation that she grew up around New Orleans.

Still, Lisa felt uncomfortable as she looked across the table at the woman, who was leaning her head on her hand as she picked through her dinner with her fork. Once, Augustine caught her eyes and smiled, but Lisa immediately looked down and worked at cutting the tail off of one of the shrimp.

The apartment was very dimly lit-Augustine claimed that there had been rolling blackouts lately, so it was best to keep the light low so that when it went off, it wouldn't be such a surprise. Despite the fact that she lived in a better part of the town, the apartment was a bit dingy and reminded Jackson of something one would find in East Berlin before the Wall fell. They were going to be staying in the extra bedroom of the apartment, which had obviously been used as storage prior to their arrival-they'd spent about twenty minutes digging all of the things off of their bed.

'C'est inconfortable, n'est pas?' asked Jackson from behind the file, pushing up his glasses before reaching out to grab his glass of wine. His wedding band caught the light and Lisa found herself spinning her own.

'Je ne comprends pas! Qu'est-ce que j'ai fait?' Augustine asked quickly, putting down her fork loudly and looking over at Jackson, but he didn't put down the folder.

'Ma femme ne peux pas parler français,' Jackson replied, slowly setting the folder down beside his plate, his eyes flickering between the two women. 'It's nothing that _you_ did. I think that we can just safely say that neither of us had overly positive relations with either of your parents.'

'Lyna did this on purpose, didn't she?' Lisa suddenly asked, concentrating on her shrimp and cutting it so hard that she sliced through it and didn't stop, filling the room with the awful squealing sound of metal against porcelain. 'That stupid Ukrainian bitch needs to get a fucking life and realise that you're not a little boy anymore and she can't just play her little practical jokes on you!' she looked up, her eyes wide. 'It's not funny anymore.'

'It was never particularly funny,' he said calmly.

'Why did you put up with it? Why did you ever condone her behaviour?' Lisa asked in a slightly crazed tone, and Augustine quickly realised that this was nothing to get mixed into and took both of their plates, walking over to the sink and turning it on full-blast to at least slightly mask their conversation.

'You know damn well why I put up with it. We cleared that up in Shanghai,' he hissed in reply.

Unexpectedly, Lisa reached out and stabbed Jackson in the hand with her fork. Immediately, her eyes grew wide and she gasped, but Jackson just calmly removed the fork and placed it in front of him on the table.

'That wasn't very nice, Leese,' he said, dabbing at his bloody hand with his napkin. 'Augustine.'

The nurse, who had stopped to stare at them when Lisa stabbed him, turned off the water and took out a first aid kit from under her sink, walking over to them and beginning to work on bandaging the area. Jackson gave his wife a dark look as Augustine blotted at his hand with gauze doused in hydrogen peroxide. Augustine turned over his hand and looked at the four clean holes that cut through to his palm, making an unhappy clicking noise as she poured some of the liquid on his hand, watching the area bubble before wiping it and wrapping the hand tightly.

'I-I'm sorry,' Lisa said, her eyes closed as she pressed her fingertips to her mouth. 'I don't know what came over me.'

Jackson flexed his hand, watching as Augustine retrieved benzylpenicillin from a much larger cache in a cabinet refrigerator next to her normal fridge. She walked over and squirted some of the medication from the tip before injecting him on top of his hand.

'I need to you take me back to Cotonou tonight,' he said, picking up the dossier and ignoring Lisa completely. 'I have work to do.'

'We can't leave her here alone,' Augustine said in a half-voice, slowly cleaning up the area where she'd tended to Jackson. 'It's not safe.'

'She's quite talented at defending herself with every day objects,' he replied dryly, pushing his chair in as he moved towards the spare bedroom. 'Leave her a pen, a fork and a vase, and when you return, she'll have protected the entire complex.'

Augustine put her hand on Lisa's shoulder reassuringly before walking out of the kitchen and grabbing her jacket from the couch in the living room-obviously a couple of years of living in Benin gave her the idea that 28°C was cool enough for a jacket. There was the muffled sound of Jackson digging through his bag to find the supplies he needed for the 'project,' as they'd taken to calling their mission, and after a few minutes, he walked out and looked at Augustine, who was leaning against one of the walls of the kitchen entrance, her arms crossed.

'Let's go,' he said, adjusting the smaller bag in his hand to avoid pressing too hard on his injury. He walked through the kitchen and gave Lisa a cursory kiss on the head before walking to the door. 'I'll see you tomorrow.'

When he walked away from her, she didn't look after him, and once they left the apartment, she could hear them speaking in the hallway.

'J'espère que _vous_ savez où nous allons,' said Augustine, spinning her keys around her finger-the metal clinked together, echoing off of the walls of the hall.

'Ouais, je sais,' her husband replied with a little laugh. 'J'y étais allé déjà quelques fois.'

The door finally clicked shut and almost immediately, she had the same sinking, lonely feeling that she had had in the marketplace, except this time, she knew that there was the distinct possibility that she had just seen her husband alive for the last time and he'd left mad because she'd stabbed him in the hand with a dirty fork


End file.
